What are you doing today?

Renzatic said:
Sometime during the dead of night, while the world was still asleep three separate water mains in my sleepy little town decided to go and blow themselves up for absolutely no apparent reason. We've been without water since.

It scared the crap out of me when I woke up this morning to perform my morningly duties, because when I went to flush the toilet, the sudden massive rush of air pressure, and the resulting HOOOOOOOONNNNGGGG made me think I broke the damn thing. So I'll tell you what I WON'T be doing today: taking a shower, or pooping.
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Good luck on the not pooping part.
 
D_T said:
I think I'd drive till I found a hotel with running water! Camp out. Get some KFC.
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If it's not back on by tonight, I might start looking at some motel rooms a town over.

I can go a day without taking a shower, but indoor pooping is rather important to me. Especially late at night, when the coyotes are out.
 
I finished with the deck water sealant today, looks great, it's a bit darker (the deck planks, Sundeck, were darker than the framing), it was a transparent + tint, timber brown (Thompsons) specifically. I wound up having enough to do the outer framing, so everything has kind of "normalized" to the same color. The tinted treatment is neat since it still shows all the wood texture and whatnot.

I picked up this killer little electric sprayer (also called "no air" since it doesn't connect to a compressor), worked great, used exactly (like finished and ran out) 2 gallons.

Went pretty quick too, I probably have about 2-1/2 hours on the whole thing, maybe 3 including cleanup, moving furniture around, refilling the spray gun, and it's a decent amount of deck: 12' out from the glass doors, then 28' across the back, takes a turn around the side of the house for like 10', drops down about 8", goes another 14' to the front of the house (gate, steps), and on that lower area, has a 10' second deck area.

So I covered a TON of deck in short time. 4.6/5 on Amazon, on sale, and had a 5% coupon, so it was only like $38, "pro" grade guns like this are $150-200 (let alone large volume setups). Plus, I've got some other projects planned so now I've got an new tool :)

Hahaha, when I was at Lowes getting the sealant a few days ago, they were already putting out their Halloween decorations, wow, very early, but that's great as we're also decorating early. Don't know if people recall, but we do it up huge for Halloween, last year I built a couple of animated rigs with motors - anyway, they had a fun little coffin prop, inexpensive, it's sitting over the in corner of the main TV room. :D
 
Renzatic said:
Refresh my memory. I've had so many incidents with so many trees, it's hard to keep track of them all.
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The one where the tree (which you had neglected to prune, or cut) - following a fascinating discussion with @lizkat - that subsequently fell as you were chatting to a neighbour.

But, the other tree stories also sound fascinating.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
The one where the tree (which you had neglected to prune, or cut) - following a fascinating discussion with @lizkat - that subsequently fell as you were chatting to a neighbour.

But, the other tree stories also sound fascinating.
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Oh, that tree. I wasn't chatting with the neighbor when it fell. It happened late at night, after a good rain had softened the ground.

I was up in my bedroom, goofing around on my iPad when I heard this loud, for lack of a better way to put it, woosh-rustling, followed by a quiet *fwoomp*. It was such an odd sound, I had to go out an investigate. Didn't notice anything immediately out of place at first, but it slowly dawned on me that I could see more sky than what I was used to seeing from that part of the yard.

Though it did fall into my neighbor's yard, and I did have to clean it up. I always wondered what happened to that guy. He had the creepiest little kid. She'd always stand on the porch, staring at me.
 
Renzatic said:
Oh, that tree. I wasn't chatting with the neighbor when it fell. It happened late at night, after a good rain had softened the ground.

I was up in my bedroom, goofing around on my iPad when I heard this loud, for lack of a better way to put it, woosh-rustling, followed by a quiet *fwoomp*. It was such an odd sound, I had to go out an investigate. Didn't notice anything immediately out of place at first, but it slowly dawned on me that I could see more sky than what I was used to seeing from that part of the yard.

Though it did fall into my neighbor's yard, and I did have to clean it up. I always wondered what happened to that guy. He had the creepiest little kid. She'd always stand on the porch, staring at me.
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And the other tall tree tales?
 
Renzatic said:
My day keeps getting better!

I'm over mowing my elderly neighbor's yard, when suddenly...BAM! BEE SWARM! Got hit 5 times. I bailed pretty quicklike. Then, to add insult to injury, when I got back to the house, one of the little bastards flew out of my shirt!

...and the water's still off, so I can't clean up.
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Hose out in the back yard? Bring the shower curtain out with you and you can get everything done all at once in semi-privacy.
 
Alli said:
Hose out in the back yard? Bring the shower curtain out with you and you can get everything done all at once in semi-privacy.
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It sounds like it's a large scale outage, not just his interior water, so his hose too, neighbors inside/outside water, etc.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
And the other tall tree tales?
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How about a tale of tall trees?

This one isn't that exciting, but it had dire consequences that have directly effected me

Until about 5 months ago, there used to be a line of these HUGE longleaf pines in my backyard. Those things had to be at least 80 feet tall, and they did an excellent job of blocking the sun from hitting my house during the late afternoon hours.

Well, my new neighbor decided he didn't like them. Probably because he was afraid they'd eventually topple over, hit his house, and kill everyone inside. Now, I can understand where he's coming from. It's a valid concern, since the top half of one of those trees did end up taking out my garage back during the 2011 tornado. But still, he decided to chop them down, and now the sun hits my yard full on, heating up my house.

My life is a series of neverending microtragedies.

D_T said:
It sounds like it's a large scale outage, not just his interior water, so his hose too, neighbors inside/outside water, etc.
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Yup. There was no water going towards the house at all. The hose would work as well as the shower would, which is to say it wouldn't.

Though on the plus side, the water has started running again. There's almost no pressure behind it, and what comes out is a rusty brown color, but it is flowing at least enough so that I can flush the toilet again.

...but I don't want to take a shower in it.
 
Had you any say in your neighbour's decision to chop the trees in your back yard down?

Was this a unilateral action, or was it one carried out with your complete (and perhaps enthusiastic) approval, obtained in advance?
 
Renzatic said:
Though on the plus side, the water has started running again. There's almost no pressure behind it, and what comes out is a rusty brown color, but it is flowing at least enough so that I can flush the toilet again.

...but I don't want to take a shower in it.
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Also, there's usually a "boil notice" if there's a water line repaired, since the system can be contaminated for a while, so no consumption unless it's boiled first.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
Had you any say in your neighbour's decision to chop the trees in your back yard down?

Was this a unilateral action, or was it one carried out with your complete (and perhaps enthusiastic) approval, obtained in advance?
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The way my house is angled, the sun sets just behind those trees, which are on his property, during the summer. I didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Didn't even know it was happening until I saw the loggers out there with their trucks.

Here's a Google Maps shot of the trees to give you a better idea of what I'm talking about. You can't see my house in this shot, but I'm on the other side of them, to the left of the house just peeking over the hill.

...I miss them so much. :(

Trees.jpg


DT said:
Also, there's usually a "boil notice" if there's a water line repaired, since the system can be contaminated for a while, so no consumption unless it's boiled first.
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There is, which makes me very suspicious about taking a shower in it. Hell, I'll probably use seltzer to brush my teeth again tonight.
 
Yesterday the loudest fucking cricket got into our home. I politely took him out twice and he came back in.
I really really really wanted to ignore his existence, but this horny little troubadour got on his moonlight sonata every moment I turned my back on him. I tracked his pointy ass down and politely kicked him, but this time through the front door.
The little fucker had already settled under the neighbor's window. They'll have a fantastic night.

This makes me wonder how the heck crickets managed to not go extinct.
 
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Renzatic said:
Well, my new neighbor decided he didn't like them. Probably because he was afraid they'd eventually topple over, hit his house, and kill everyone inside. Now, I can understand where he's coming from. It's a valid concern, since the top half of one of those trees did end up taking out my garage back during the 2011 tornado. But still, he decided to chop them down, and now the sun hits my yard full on, heating up my house.
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We have a similar tree situation, although our neighbor would be perfectly happy if we removed (and paid for) all the remaining trees. Every major storm we’ve had since Katrina has required a new roof thanks to toppling trees. Two storms ago, the pine tree on the side of the house got hit by lightning and split in half at an angle. The top half evidently started to just slide down the bottom, but when the branches came into play it jumped out a few feet, causing the knifelike bottom of the top of the tree to go straight through our heat pump.

B865C4A9-FF93-4957-A618-890E00E00877.jpeg


We still have all these, plus a few in the front, and a couple on the neighbor’s property between our houses. It’s a real love/hate relationship with the trees.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
My French class has finished for the night, and I am feeling surprisingly virtuous, as I have already done some of my homework for next week, plus a little revision.
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Envy you...
My daily accomplishments: woken up by baby at 430, fed her got her back to sleep by 530. Slept until 930. Pleaded to go out for a bike ride with my older one. Pleading took 1.5H, walk/ride was 45min...
Got her to take her PM nap in 20 min (new record). About 1H of catch up sleep with my face planted in a research article, and a red bull later I'm ready to conquer to world....
 
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