It’s 2009 Fer Cryin’ Out Loud

It’s incredible I haven’t written anything here since Thanksgiving! So much has happened since then. Of course, I became a grandpa on Halloween, with the birth of Isabelle Chappell. Then Becky went out to CA first of December to help out, I went out mid-December, and we came back Jan. 4, 2009. While in CA a lot of good visiting was done with the family, and I must’ve taken at least 500 pictures, none of which I’m posting here, being sensitive to everybody’s privacy concerns. Pictures have been shared on a private basis with notification by emails.

It snowed a couple or more inches last night and has continued snowing today, just stopping a little while ago. Maybe I’ll take a picture or two and add them here later. Usually, it snows on my birthday, which is not until Monday. I don’t think any more snow is predicted after this one.

In one of my blogs, don’t recall whether whether it was this one or my attorney blog or bandolero’s blog or harpshot’s blog, I mentioned the Safari browser for PC. Apple just released Safari Version 4 beta, which I’m using now. It is FAST! I might have to stay with it until Firefox catches up with similar technology to speed it up like this. Safari still doesn’t have a lot of the plug-ins I’ve come to rely on with Firefox for web designing and certain other esoteric endeavors.

So, Spring is just around the corner. Incredible, ain’t it?

Thanksgiving 2008

I remember past Thanksgivings with snow, but no such thing this year. Things have been mild so far. Global warming? Nah, I don’t think so. I should have taken photos of the feast Becky prepared for the two of us today. Actually, she started cooking last night. At our empty nest, Thanksgivings just aren’t the same as they used to be; but you wouldn’t know it from all the food and wonderful smells emanating from Becky’s kitchen. She’s incredible. I’m stuffed.

Since my last post about autumn here in Kansas we’ve had more of the same. It turned out to be a fairly colorful fall thanks, I surmise, to an appropriate combination of temperature and moisture during the summer. So, I uploaded more pics to the Fall Colors 2008 Gallery on Flickr, including the two shown here.

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.