Restless Earth

Down to 2.05.9. Let the congregation say, "Amen".

posted by Spudgunner @ 4:16 PM 4 comments

Gas and Shakes

Well, we're down to 2.08.9 a gallon. I think Fred Meyer and one of the local Stop-And-Rob chains are in some sort of gas price war.

Weather here is cold/breezy with lots of clouds and an occasional flake (no, not some of our neighbors...I mean snow flake).

Restless earth is pretty restless today with three > 3.0 quakettes in sort of a line from S. of Lake Tahoe, through Susanville (I think), and on to Mt. Shasta.

Toilet Update

The mighty Kohler Throne [tm] continues to impress. Everybody complains about these 1.6 ga/flush potties and I'm starting to wonder why. Maybe I'm just not eating the right food. Next time I go to Albertsons I'll look for the "Crapperclysmic" foodstuffs. Or maybe Americans just poop too much. It's hard to say but I'm sure there's some gov't-funded study that would answer this question.

Weather Update

It is now snowing pretty good...with those big wet flakes.

posted by Spudgunner @ 3:40 PM 0 comments

Well, gas prices are down to 2.10.9 here in Boise. I have it from semi-reliable sources that prices are in the high-170's in the Ohio valley...but that's along way to drive to save on gas. Looks like we might get some snow tonight. There are a few patches of the white stuff around from last weekend's storm. The foothills are all white and Bogus Basin has 12" at the base and 14" on top. One good storm will allow them to open so I hope the weather gets with the program.

posted by Spudgunner @ 4:48 PM 0 comments

Unusual. Gas prices actually dropping before a holiday. Stitch paid 2.19.9 / gal. today.

posted by Spudgunner @ 5:12 PM 1 comments

Restless Earth must be having a skin rash. The shake map of CA is way high. See fer thyself at:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/ . Probably a good thing, though, lots of little quakes relieving stress. On other hand, that's what volcanos do before they blow up...

Other notes: Mom-in-law turned 79 today. Young son washed Havoc the Wonderdog[tm]. That's always fun to watch. The air in Boise is really starting to get thick. At least it has a nice sulphur tinge to it... Restless Earth's weatherguessers are saying no weather for Idaho for the remainder of the month...so no relief from the inversion. Received more black metal parts for Stitch's "Skunk Duster".

posted by Spudgunner @ 6:29 PM 0 comments

More Maintenance

This weekend I experienced yet more "pride of home ownership" when it became apparent that the faucet in the kitchen would no longer be a team player. Basically, it's one of those single-lever jobs that has been performing well since I installed it about 8 years or so ago. The problem was that the valve mechanism that the handle was attached to was binding and that made the handle difficult to move. Furthermore, the faucet was difficult to turn off due to binding. Well, another "web rescue" ensued after I googled "Price-Pfister repair". I went to some DIY home repair site that assured me that even a person with 10 thumbs could do this simple repair. Encouraged I clicked a link to the Price-Pfister website. Shortly thereafter I had nabbed a PDF showing all the parts (and part numbers) for our faucet. I wrote down the part number for something called a "cartridge" (the binding part the handle is attached to) and bombed on down to Lowe's. I was forced to roam around a bit in the toilet/sink/faucet aisles and never found any faucet parts. After asking one of the "dudes in red" he took me away from the plumbing supplies area and dropped me off with all the deadbolts. There was the exact Price-Pfister part I needed. I'm not sure why it was next to the deadbolts...but I'm there's some logic in there somewhere.

Kudos to Price-Pfister on having such repair info so easily available via their website.

I replaced the old nasty cartridge with the new one and then reassembled the faucet. Works like new now.

So far, if I had to replace kitchen/bath plumbing I think I'd choose Price-Pfister valving and Kohler toilets. I'll be glad when this home-ownership upgrade/fix phase of my life is over. Then I go back to cheaper & safer activities like playing with loaded guns.

The next big home upgrade will be happening up north at our place in Garden Valley. We're going to knock out a wall and make a studio for Stitch and that damned long arm machine (DLAM). We are going to replace the wall with a nice piece of nothing. Should be cheap. We are also going to replace the flooring with "real wood laminate (AKA engineered flooring)". The impartial observer has suggested we look at Century Flooring. There's a distributor for this company just a few miles from us and the product is outstanding so we'll go check it out soon.

posted by Spudgunner @ 1:10 PM 1 comments

What to do with an old toilet?

As per the earlier entry into the captain's log, the old ceramic throne has been replaced with the sleek new lo-flo Kohler. The new fixture has been deemed "a good thing" but the issue of what to do with the old American Standard is now at the fore.

I've been soliciting suggestions from a variety of my well-armed compatriots and suggestions have ranged from "nuke it from orbit" to "turn it into a planter". Since I'm fresh out of PU and an orbiting weapons platform, I think I'll go with the latter suggestion. Of course, the most applicable type of plant to grow would be pot. Second on the list would be to grow Shiitaki mushrooms, I guess.

posted by Spudgunner @ 2:04 PM 0 comments

We spent last weekend at Garden Valley. Saturday was beautiful. Sunday we awoke to a moderate snow and by the time we left for home there was about 2.5"-3" of snow on the ground. Saturday I did go see a little new country when I drove the Jeep to the location of our community's irrigation water source. We have a diversion dam on one of the local year-round streams that I had never before visited...so Saturday I took a trip to check out the dam. We irrigators are getting more organized so as to address a growing number of water concerns that are arising due in no small part to the growth of the area in which we reside. I'm in the process of creating a webpage that we can use as a clearinghouse for irrigation-related information. I used a free "canned" webpage background that I simply added content to. Makes things very quick.

The layoffs are over at Stitch's employer. At least for the next 11 months they say...

Stitch wants an AR-15 rifle. She's occasionally up at Garden Valley alone and she has stated that it would be nice to have a weapon available. I'm building her a lightweight carbine version (16" barrel) that should be very portable and easy to use. I'll put some sort of electronic and/or laser sight on it as well. She and I have rifles that have consecutive serial #'s. In Idaho, that's considered cool.

As an added bonus, the pic above is the back (downstream) side of the diversion dam.

posted by Spudgunner @ 6:36 PM 2 comments

Well, I just got a package delivered via UPS. It's from buy.com and I think it's a USB 2.0 hub. Yup.... I need to sell boxes to buy.com. This hub is about the size of a pack of cigarettes and they sent it in a box that could hold a large crockpot.

The toilet installation went well. Testing is still underway. The users have leaked but the toilet has not. I was very impressed with this Kohler toilet. They didn't include the seatbelts, so I'll have to go to the scrapyard for those...but other than that it was an easy install. The only thing I had to buy other than the toilet was the was the wax ring. They even included a User Manual along with installation instructions.

And yes, Almond looks a whole lot like Beige and Bone...what a shocker!

Young son gave his two-week notice yesterday to Papa Murphy's. Today he thought better of it and retrieved his written notice which, apparently, nobody noticed. Asked about his reasons for wanting to leave, he noted "druggy coworkers" and "nasty customers". I didn't have the heart to tell him that this wasn't a situation unique to Papa's. I suggested that he look into police work. While he would still have lots of "druggy coworkers" at least he could shoot the customers that were especially nasty.

posted by Spudgunner @ 4:30 PM 1 comments

In regard to the current riots in France by muslims, a guy I know said, "Wake up world, trouble is here and they packed for a long visit."

posted by Spudgunner @ 12:19 PM 2 comments

The Commode Chronicles

Do you know how hard it is to find a toilet in a color other than white? At least at Lowe's and Homely Depot? The son and I spent a good portion of the morning trying to find a replacement for one of our toilets that is leaking and making strange sounds. The color of the old pot is what American Standard (and others) refer to as "Bone". In most circles that is known as Beige.

As you may know, most toilets are sold in two pieces; the bowl and the tank. Well, Lowe's had a single model with a "Bone" bowl but no Bone tank. Home Depot didn't have any "Bone" colored pots, but did have a fairly nice Kohler in something called "Almond". (I wonder if have one in Pecan.) At least HD had both the bowl and tank in Almond. I guess you have to go to an upscale (read: expensive) toilet bowl retailer to get something other than white. Undoubtedly you can get colored potties on the web...but who wants to pay the shipping? We got the Almond Kohler.

posted by Spudgunner @ 8:03 PM 1 comments