Latest updates on the "Stuff" front:
- The email sifting continues. Thousands have been already sorted and stored, and I still have thousands more to go. But I've sure been making progress. Here's a tip when it comes to sorting anything: if you have 300 items in one category and only 3 in another category, then chances are you need to redefine your categories for sorting.
- An old friend from high school just dropped me a line, after doing a search for his name on line and stumbling across a page from this blog. Hooray for search engines and unique last names!
- I am not somebody who gets regular back pains at all. But christ on a cracker, I sure ended up sleeping the wrong way or something a few nights ago. It's hard to move stuff when you don't have much movement in your neck. Just as well that I stay inside, since I smell like Ben Gay and Icy-Hot.
- Succumbed to another cheap DVD buying spree. Great stuff, but this has meant more CD and DVD arranging. At least there are 20 less movies on the floor now. And I've resolved not to buy any more DVDs for the rest of the month.
- Still transferring the old Hi-8 tapes to DVD. I've burned at least 16 DVDs now. And I sure have some thoughts after reviewing all of these old tapes. But that deserve it's own blog entry or two.
And the following might make me sound like a "Rain Man" or special needs kid who just learned to tie his own shoes. But really, I am happy to finally have the following stuff working in my home once again. Some of these could have been resolved with a quick call to my trusty landlord, but I kept putting in off. In some cases, I was putting these off for several YEARS. One of the main reasons was not wanting to move the clutter that would be blocking the landlord's way. But I did clean out a path in the hallway, a path in the kitchen, and everything above and below the kitchen sink. It was time. I made the phone call.
Two of the problems were fixed by my landlord and his son when they visited (and on the holiday of Jan 1, no less). The other two were fixed by me.
- Working lights in the bathroom. This was the final straw. This was the one problem of all the four listed here that made me say "OK, enough is enough. I can't keep on bringing flashlights into the bathroom for everything. Two days maybe, but certainly not forever." My lights were working fine until I tried turning the switch when my hands were full. Trying to jiggle the switch on with the extended edge of a flat box, it flickered then stopped working. It wasn't the bulbs; they would turn on for a brief second when the switch was turned on. It wasn't the fuses or the circuit breakers, though I turned them all off and then on again at the instructions of the landlord. He and his son came by to test the circuit breakers. They were fine. Apparently it was in the switch. Soon enough, they fixed it.
- A working garbage disposal. Next I directed them to the second problem I called them about: the garbage disposal. For the past several years, turning the switch wouldn't do anything. I'd normally leave the plunger in my sink so that I could use it to keep the drain flowing. The landlord's son said something was stuck in it. He picked up the plunger that was conveniently there, turned it around, and stuck the wooden handle down the drain. Then he stirred it. After some fidgeting, he pulled the now black-tipped plunger out of the disgusting drain hole, turned on the switch, and voila: I heard my garbage disposal for the first time in years.
- A shower that doesn't clog. This was something I had been trying to remedy for a long time. It wasn't clogged completely, but it had a slow drain. At some point I did replace my drain cap with one of those specially made hair traps (my hair being, I'm sure, the reason for the clog). That worked like a charm for a while, but eventually the draining just got slower and slower. I was sick of finishing a shower and being up to my ankles in water. I tried using the plunger, but I couldn't get a good seal around the drain. I had tried buying whatever liquid drain cleaners I could find at the local 24-hour drug store. I tried using one of those "snake" pieces that sticks down the drain and pulls out hair. I tried buying a new plunger whose end was small enough to make a seal around the drain. No suck luck. Finally, I bought some other brand of liquid drain cleaner made specifically for hair, and it worked. Now if only I could remember the brand.
- A working toilet. Actually, my toilet "worked". The problem though was that the refill valve wouldn't trigger the flowing water to turn on. So after flushing, it wouldn't fill back up until you opened the back and gave the valve a tap. It's basically a challenge in physics: the fill valve has to be heavy enough to sink as the water level sinks, but still float in water too so that it floats when the water level rises. I tried fixing it on several different occasions, and managed to fix it one time with duct tape and an empty Pepto-Bismol bottle (whose triangular shape fits nicely in the corner). But eventually that came undone. The bad news this time was that the stuff I bought from Home Depot didn't work, but my new McGyver solution (two paper clips, two thumbtacks, two rubber balls, and an empty travel shampoo bottle) worked like charm!
