Water Torture

It was like Chinese water torture (er, maybe in this “PC” era it should just be called water torture) around here from all the dripping faucets. They all dripped, so there was no place in the house where you could escape it. We had to close the bathroom doors at bedtime, otherwise the drip-drip-drip-drip-drip made sleep impossible. Most places, a person would just put in new washers; but not our place. Here, the faucets could not be taken apart, even with handle pullers. I knew something would break if I used enough force to make my way to the washers. So, we surrendered to the inevitable and called a plumber. Originally, we were just going to have him replace washers and, of course, fix anything that broke along the way. But, when he showed up, we told him to just replace all the fixtures. This included the sink downstairs, both bathroom sinks, the shower, the tub, and new shut-offs for both toilets.

Getting at the tub plumbing required cutting through a wall inside the closet, so we told him to go ahead and add a shower fixture; and getting to the shower plumbing required cutting a hole through the wall between the bathrooms. Here are pictures of the exposed plumbing, plus the closet after covering the hole. Still haven’t patched the other hole. The end result was somewhat costlier than doing a few washers myself (which would’ve involved a plumber, anyhow, before all was said and done), but it sure was worth it! It’s so quiet! And the handles turn so easily!

And, yes, the plumber had to break a couple of fixtures to get them out.

Nice Fall

We’re having a pretty nice Fall, or Autumn, around here. Warm and colorful. Except on the cold rainy days. Last week I had to drive out to a client’s oil lease to “see for myself” and take some photos in anticipation of a lawsuit. Aside from the potential legal use of the photos, many of them made for a nice outdoorsy collection which I called Fall 2008 Sojourn and uploaded to Flickr. Since then, I’ve been taking pictures while Becky and I were out taking our “constitutionals”. These made for a nice autumnsy collection which I called Fall Colors 2008 and also uploaded to Flickr.

Moon Shots

Not too long ago one morning the sun was coming up in the east while the moon was going down in the west. Grabbed the camera for a few photos. Y’know, trying to do “dramatic” or “spectacular” moon photos with a snapshot camera is quite a challenge. The best four can be viewed at HarpShot’s Flickr Gallery.

Didn’t try taking any pictures of the sun. Wasn’t up high enough to see, actually.

Speaking of new web browsers, today using “Orca”. Doesn’t have anything to do with the splashing sea animal on the Famly Website home page.