Old Journal Entries

• 8/20/02
  Weekend was uneventful, kinda laid back, but the latter part of last week was a bit frustrating. Turns out that the foundation leak, that I thought was coming from outside, is actually an internal drain leak, so today the plumbers spent the better part of the day finding and fixing it. You can see pictures here They were pretty good, although the morning guy accidentally cut into the pipes while opening up the wall .. causing 2 more leaks that they had to repair.

  While I had them here I also asked about the bypass valve on my hot water heater I guess it works, but they were unsure why I even had one there. By happenstance I mentioned my slow to warm hot water, I'd always thought it was because of the length of run that caused the water to cool down. The plumbers think that the water heater intakes were reversed, so the hot water side is actually drawing from the drip tube portion of the tank, taking water from the bottom of the tank where its coolest instead of from the top where the hot water percolates not only that but the cold water feeding in at the top cools everything on the way to the bottom. At least it was installed by their company last year, so I have a hope of getting them to foot part of the repair bill.

  The other thing was that the water shutoff valve, doesn't ... it slows down a bit but theres still constant flow. The plumber said it was probably warn on the interior, from the years of water flow and wasn't closing correctly. The downside on this one is that it couldn't be replaced without turning off the water to the whole building. Well at least the homeowners association agrees that they own this problem, unlike the drain. I guess the CC&R's were changed to make any "solo" use items the (like the drain plumbing) the responsibility of the homeowner and not the association.

  I still have to live with the holes in the walls for a while, the interior needs to dry out from the previous leaking, and the sheet rock guy from the plumbing crew will need to come back and put my walls back together, and re-texture and insulate the hole in the kitchen.

  After the plumbing adventures I headed out to play bball, was running pretty well until this novice player decided to flail badly and catch me with an elbow to just below my left eye socket. Needless to say I was done for the night, at least it didn't swell to much, probably helped that I got plenty of ice on it.

  On the travel front, all of the arrangements are done for Daryl's wedding in The Czech Republic, but now I have to get shots and an international drivers license. This coming weekend is the Hood To Coast Relay, and I'll be driving the gang from Seattle, should be pretty tiring, but fun. I've even been planning ahead some, got my reservations in for next year's Laguna Seca *whee*. Thats it for over a week now, since I won't be back from Hood to Coast (and my Seattle visit) till next wed.

• 8/13/02
  Can't seem to break out of this weekly update thing, spent most of the weekend kicking around, nothing much, did catch a movie with Elena and then it was off to the bird show on Sunday. Caroline was in town but wasn't able to hook up with her (in SF) on such short notice. That plus I didn't want to ride all the way up and back, especially late at night.

  This week was a busy one, and expensive looking to boot. Managed to book our flights to Daryl's wedding. Dispite the flooding in Prague, we're pretty sure it'll be habitable by the time we get there. Then I finally got the home owners association to look at the foundation leak, they think its from the bathroom (or kitchen) so it's probably my responsibility (single use rule or some such) so now I have to have a plumber try and track it down next week.

  Today was going pretty good, dinner with Elena and her sister at Outback (beef, yum) then off to see Clint, decent and entertaining. But then while I was manuvering my bike in her driveway, I caught the wheel on the corner of the walkwak/driveway and over I went, one of those slow motion topples. Scraped my helmet just a bit (no shock must a roll) broke my brake lever at the knob, and bent my brake pedal. At least there was no real scrapes on the fairing, the clip-on bars are still straight, and I managed to bend the rear brake pedal back close to normal. I'll have to hunt around for another brake lever though, its a bit too short, useful but not quite comfortable. The right side turn signal was scraped but that doesn't matter cuz I have mini marker light replacements that I haven't put on yet. Also the right mirror just moved, but no scrapes per se. So now I'm thinking frame sliders might be a good thing. At least I know that Elena is capable of helping me lift my bike on an incline, even if she can't drag me to safety if I'm disabled ;)

• 8/6/02
  Played bball again, this time my legs were toast, I think I might have a summer cold, probably doesn't help that I have to ride my bike after playing. Oh well any exercise is good for me.

  Have still been BBQ'ing a bunch, makes cooking pretty quick, and increases my protein intake (gonna zone pretty soon) Still quite a bit behind on my movies and with my trips coming up, I may have to accelerate my visits to the theatre.

  I went to visit my poor car this week, its so sad to see it all in pieces, they found another $2K worth of damage after they pulled the body parts off, now it looks like it won't be done until the end of August. At least they let me take some picture of it while it was in progress. You can take a look at them here.

  Last bit of news is that my re-fi may have hit a snag, apparently my sister hasn't been into the Seattle house for long enough and the whole mortgage may count toward my debt ratio making things kinda iffy right now.

Who are these people?

Old Journal Entries