Monday, December 24, 2007
Back Home
I'm back fom Roatan. I had a great trip! It was crazy to be in a one bedroom apartment with my entire family for a week. That's the first time all 7 of us have taken a vacation together. and we actually got along ok...... We had many adventures,
Friday, December 21, 2007
Roatan, Honduras
I am on the island of Roatan, off the coast of Honduras. Staying at Infinity Bay where my parents bought a condo. It's really beautiful here, and it's really wamr now that it stopped raining. I'm going to spend today snorkeling and laying on the beach.I head back to Portland tomorrow, so I need to soak up as much sun as possible before going back to the rain.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Plumbers in Training
I've had many adventures over the past few weeks, some good, some not so good.
Believe it or not, this was one of the better ones..... We had a new hot water heater put in, (Yay! tankless! Endless hotwater, it's AWESOME!) but changing out the hotwater heater kicked up some sediment and clogged the hot side of the faucet. We didn't have any water pressure with the hot water in the kitchen, not even enough to keep it running hot. So first we took apart the hot water valve under the sink, because it wouldn't shut off all the way. So we turned off the water to the house, assuming the hot water valve was goign to be our problem, took that all apart and cleaned it out. Got the wire brush stuck and had to take apart more of the valve to get the valve out, then finally put it all back together to have nothing different. though we did have a great time turning the water on and off to flush out the pipes. Jeff didn't quite believe me that it would come shooting STRAIGHT out of the wall.
Next, we took apart our faucet. We disconnected the whole big ugly old thing. Only to find out that there was no way to clean out the little pipes where the clog must be. Now since we couldn't turn our hot water valve off at the sink, since it wouldn't turn off all the way, we had to re-connect our faucet, just to leave it dangling there under the sink, so that we could turn our water back on. Because, by this time, it was late and Home Depot and Lowes were closed.
In the meantime, we also realized that our P-trap was leaking. Very poorly put together, the plastic piece going up into the first pipe that comes down from the drain was not actually secured, just kind of shoved up there...
I go to Home Depot the next day and buy a new faucet, a new valve and a new p-trap. We also had this weird water filter thing in our sink that we didn't use, so we were going to take it out. The filter dispenser was at a fourth hole, so I assumed it was a regular 4 hole sink. So I bought the faucet with a sprayer. We go to install our new faucet, and remove the water filter only to find the hole for the filter is teeny tiny. So Jeff goes ahead and manages to cut the hole big enough for our sprayer. Yay! We install the faucet with much success.
On to the P-trap:
we discover we have two, I guess I will call them female ends though its kinda hard to figure with plumbing..... two female ends that meet where there should be some sort of male end.
Another trip to Home Depot, in the meantime we have a 5 gallon bucket under the sink as our drain.
After some good advice and some cheap parts from the Depot, we manage to put the whole thing back together. And it doesn't leak!
I got to do the laundry basket full of dishes and put the garbage back under the sink, it's all much better now. It was fun, we learned a lot and it was a funny interesting debacle.
on the side of bad adventures, Rosie got in a dog fight and I owe some people a lot of $ for vet bills. That's not a fun story though. Plumbing is much more entertaining.
Believe it or not, this was one of the better ones..... We had a new hot water heater put in, (Yay! tankless! Endless hotwater, it's AWESOME!) but changing out the hotwater heater kicked up some sediment and clogged the hot side of the faucet. We didn't have any water pressure with the hot water in the kitchen, not even enough to keep it running hot. So first we took apart the hot water valve under the sink, because it wouldn't shut off all the way. So we turned off the water to the house, assuming the hot water valve was goign to be our problem, took that all apart and cleaned it out. Got the wire brush stuck and had to take apart more of the valve to get the valve out, then finally put it all back together to have nothing different. though we did have a great time turning the water on and off to flush out the pipes. Jeff didn't quite believe me that it would come shooting STRAIGHT out of the wall.
Next, we took apart our faucet. We disconnected the whole big ugly old thing. Only to find out that there was no way to clean out the little pipes where the clog must be. Now since we couldn't turn our hot water valve off at the sink, since it wouldn't turn off all the way, we had to re-connect our faucet, just to leave it dangling there under the sink, so that we could turn our water back on. Because, by this time, it was late and Home Depot and Lowes were closed.
In the meantime, we also realized that our P-trap was leaking. Very poorly put together, the plastic piece going up into the first pipe that comes down from the drain was not actually secured, just kind of shoved up there...
I go to Home Depot the next day and buy a new faucet, a new valve and a new p-trap. We also had this weird water filter thing in our sink that we didn't use, so we were going to take it out. The filter dispenser was at a fourth hole, so I assumed it was a regular 4 hole sink. So I bought the faucet with a sprayer. We go to install our new faucet, and remove the water filter only to find the hole for the filter is teeny tiny. So Jeff goes ahead and manages to cut the hole big enough for our sprayer. Yay! We install the faucet with much success.
On to the P-trap:
we discover we have two, I guess I will call them female ends though its kinda hard to figure with plumbing..... two female ends that meet where there should be some sort of male end.
Another trip to Home Depot, in the meantime we have a 5 gallon bucket under the sink as our drain.
After some good advice and some cheap parts from the Depot, we manage to put the whole thing back together. And it doesn't leak!
I got to do the laundry basket full of dishes and put the garbage back under the sink, it's all much better now. It was fun, we learned a lot and it was a funny interesting debacle.
on the side of bad adventures, Rosie got in a dog fight and I owe some people a lot of $ for vet bills. That's not a fun story though. Plumbing is much more entertaining.
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Xmas tree adventures
tree cutting
tree carrying
Emme's a tree!
Rosie helping
ornament hanging
We got our tree out on Sauvie Island. I chatted with the tree farmer for a little while. He bought the place in the 70s with his wife and their 6 kids. They went on to have 2more kids. This last spring he fell out of one of his tall trees, really tall trees, and fractured his skull and broke his back and pelvis and other things, all in multiple places. He said that was it for his wife, and they've sold the farm. So this was their last season. He was telling us that Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers flew outa few times. He didn't know who he was, he asked keidis what he did for aliving and he said "I write and sing songs." i guess keidis didn't buy the farm, he bought a downtown condo for his dad instead. Some people from California bought it. It's highly unlikely they'll be farming Christmas trees on it though.
tree carrying
Emme's a tree!
Rosie helping
ornament hanging
We got our tree out on Sauvie Island. I chatted with the tree farmer for a little while. He bought the place in the 70s with his wife and their 6 kids. They went on to have 2more kids. This last spring he fell out of one of his tall trees, really tall trees, and fractured his skull and broke his back and pelvis and other things, all in multiple places. He said that was it for his wife, and they've sold the farm. So this was their last season. He was telling us that Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers flew outa few times. He didn't know who he was, he asked keidis what he did for aliving and he said "I write and sing songs." i guess keidis didn't buy the farm, he bought a downtown condo for his dad instead. Some people from California bought it. It's highly unlikely they'll be farming Christmas trees on it though.
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