No mess
Well the cold snap has passed and we have survived without any broken pipes or power failures. Our brand new roof gutters have survived the ice storm and they did fill up completely with ice but hung in there.
Now it's just rain at about 50f.
Got the email from Ford I've been waiting for officially allowing me to order my reserved Lightning pick-up truck. Went down to the dealer to order the build options and after settling on all the extras I wanted was told the price increase of the base model went up almost $6000.
I politely told them no thanks, I'll keep my ole Mazda.
I still have a reserve on a Tesla Cybertruck, but I will probably pass away before it hits the market.
The old Mazda ('86) has 374k miles on it and now has become a personal challenge to push it to half a mill. Looks like crap, never wash it. Got stolen a few years back, but they brought it back that night with some gas in it.
Great farm truck though. Taught four grandkids how to drive a stick shift in it. Couldn't bang it up any more than it already was. Other drivers kept their distance, wouldn't even park next to it.
What the hell, if and when it stops I'll just ease it over to the side of the road and call an Uber. Only paid $1200 for it back in '98.
I will take the Weinersnitchel hot dog off the antenna to keep the memories alive.
No fuss, no mess, just walk away.
The thread is open. What's on your mind?
Comments
Good morning
With you on keeping the old beaters alive. This past year needed a rebuilt tranny in the
2005 Astro van and a new gas tank in the 2007 Camry. Not cheap items, but think there
is still enough useful life to keep them on the road. If I add up the combined
mileage of the two, it is about the same as your Mazda.
Lost track of days. Missed an appointment yesterday. Oh well, holidays and time
changes are confusing.
Hope the ice melts without too much damage.
Thanks for hosting!
Broken pipes.
Yeah, mon- tons of fun. The apartment complex where we've temporarily come to roost is about 25 years old. At the start of the cold snap, the management sent out a blast message to all residents saying to keep thermostats at 68 or above, and to do the faucet-drip thing to avoid pipe freezing. We knew that that was the first sign of trouble to come, since there are people who will see any such directive and say "You can't tell me what to do!", and do the opposite. But we did it anyway, and then buckled up to see what would happen (that hopefully wouldn't have us having to move for the 4th time after the fire).
The first flood was at the (newly-refurbished) clubhouse, late on the night of the 23rd. The next was in the building across the street, at about 5am on the 24th. And then, at about 10:30am on the 24th, the fire alarm on our building started going off. There was lots of shouting and running around upstairs, and we ventured out to find that the folks above us had broken a pipe and started flooding. Luckily, their extra upstairs bedroom is mostly above their garage, so all the water went that direction, and we miraculously stayed dry. The cascade of water into the street was impressive.
And then the story gets interesting. In all 3 cases, the pipes that froze and broke were part of the fire sprinkler system that is required by law in multifamily dwellings, and not in any tenant-controllable plumbing. All the failures were in the top floors, in the sprinkler runs in the attic spaces, up above the joists.
Which leads me to ask the rhetorical question: what sort of cloth-eared, rectocranial invert, rat-faced *imbecile* designed a *wet sprinkler system* for a residential building in a climate where subzero temps are common? You see, ideally a sprinkler system is maintained dry: it is only taken wet to test it for inspection before occupancy (and then periodically thereafter, for insurance recertification). But after testing, it should be completely drained of water. The system is then filled with compressed air, at the correct pressure to slightly overbalance the local water pressure in the standpipe. If a sprinkler head then opens due to the presence of heat, the compressed air rushes out, allowing the water to refill the plumbing and flow to the seat of the fire. The fire panel senses the water rushing in to replace the compressed air by the opening of an automatic one-way flapper valve in the standpipe. That valve opening is what sets off the building alarm.
Sprinkler plumbing filled with air won't freeze and break. Sprinkler plumbing filled with water, and not properly (and expensively) insulated, is damned near guaranteed to do so at -14degF. So either the architect/designers of the place, or more likely the building inspectors who did the most recent testing, really dropped the ball on that one.
In any case, our building now has inop fire sprinklers, until such time as they replace the broken hardware (and the ceiling that came down upstairs). And I'm dropping a dime on the local building inspectors (as well as the South Metro Fire people) to find out WTF, even though I know that I risk getting us red-tagged out of the place and thrown back into nomad status. Winter ain't over, yet- we're barely even started. Jeez...
Just another question to add to the list to ask when we move into a new place in the future, if we stay around here where it gets cold. Fun times!
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Yep
No good reason not to have a Dry System installed in that building. City/County Plan Check miss that big time.
Hell, it's in the National Code.
Went through the office of Greased Palms and Special Decisions I bet.
Thanks for the post.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
I'd be a little pissed about the sprinkler system
if I were in your shoes!
Damn, I hope you do not have to move AGAIN!
Best of luck, friend.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Just waiting for
the Douglas County folks to come by and red-tag us out of here, now. I kinda lit a few people on fire, so to speak. That’d be our second DougCo red tag in 11 months. (;-)
Ahh, what the hell. YOLO. We can move out easier than ever, should it come to that. I don’t think it will, though- there is some egg on some faces that would very much prefer to remain egg-free. Anyway, I had some limited fun with a few minions today.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Ain't it fun
stickin' it to The Man? Good for you!
You and your wife have moving down to a fine art by now. What was stressful is now just a thing. If it comes to that, it will be a priority to get the specs on the sprinkler system before you sign the lease.
Who knew?
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Well said.
It never occurred to me that I needed to dive that deep, in the crush to find a place, *any* place, to land. But, in retrospect, there is nobody looking out for us- but us.
Now, I know better: like the “restoration” companies (hired by the insurance companies) that ruined most of what we had left while “restoring” it after the fire, but have already been paid against our insurance policy, no questions asked- whereas we won’t be until sometime next year at best, and still have more documentation hoops to jump through.
There are sharks everywhere. Hate ‘em all.
They were carrying the mattress out from our upstairs neighbors earlier, since it had been saturated with water from the sprinkler system failure and is no longer salvageable. Hell, our mattress is brand new (paid for out of our own pockets, maybe they’ll reimburse us some day?). We didn’t get it until we moved in here in July. If we have to bail, I’ll moisten it in my own way, and we’ll leave it right where it is, and file a new goddamned claim.
Fuggem. Argh.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Your 'tude
is after my own heart, pal!
Oh, insurance claims...I remember what I went through when my office building burned down. (Or is that burned up?) I had to stand by and watch a dog sniff around for an hour. State fire inspector. The smart ass young agent who said it was only 20% damaged. I tolerated that crap, filled out forms, even had a tech guy assess the cost of replacing electronics, and on and on. Then, I called the agent. I said I wanted the entire insured amount. Not a penny less. Or, I would sue. I had a check for the full amount in 7 days.
I was out of pocket for the 7 volunteer fire trucks that showed up with full crews, except only one of them had water. Mind you, I don't even know who called them. But I had to pay a bill for the dry volunteers to some corp in California. $4,500.00.
I did change insurance companies, did manage to rebuild the office.
Sometimes, it just takes a while to achieve a new normal.
I hope you do not have to moisten your new mattress.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Don’t worry,
I’ll write someone *else’s* name… (;-)
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Omnigreet earthling one et all. One of the first things
that came to my mind was that the word "thread" in your "open thread" tag is mispelled as "tread" which is why it only shows up in "recent threads". Glad no freeze damage to your place. We too have rain, lots of it, and temp around 57.
The old environmental 3 Rs -reduce, reuse, recycle - needs a fourth r - repair. The EFF has been fighting to establish a "right to repair" since a lot of more recent shit can't be repaired legally, and, in many cases, at all. They did get legislation passed in NY, but the gobernator won't sign it because Apple, Micro$hit, and similar tech empires oppose it and own her. I just gotta know if your Mazda was a
WankerWankle. We generally keep vehicles at least 10 years, but we also generally don't put a ton of miles on them either.Happy in-between-holidays interregnum.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I have expanded to five
Reduce, reuse, repurpose, repair, or recycle.
I remember the Wankle engine. Quite a piece of engineering, and it worked pretty good.
But naw, I got the 2000 cc inline four banger, bulletproof motor though. Rebuilt it at 300k and still going strong. Bought it at police impound for $265 and rebuild was around $1000.
The most amazing thing about it? It has an 8 foot bed! Unheard of anymore unless you spend $100k.
It was one of the reasons I passed on the Ford. Don't need a five passenger, four door oversized sedan with-out a trunklid.
Thanks for the catch on the tread (thread).
Have yourself a merry new year.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Last truck I sold to my neighbor
was 19 yrs old, 69K miles on it, and it was a diesel truck. It is still truckin', 5 years later.
A Ford 3/4 ton, used it to haul my 3-horse trailer.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
If the Mazda breaks down on
The road, call a tow truck instead of Uber. You won't like the bill you'll get if you abandon it.
In most of the states I've lived
the tow company will just impound it and sell it for scrap if you don't pay to get it out. I already saved it once from police impound back in '98.
Course, that was 25 years ago. Times change I guess. I will mull it over when it happens. Donate it to a local school Auto Shop class as a "project Truck" at least, huh?
Thanks for stopping by.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
Good afternoon, everybody!
Work was a bit busier this morning than I had anticipated.
I interviewed a mom that allegedly beat the crap out of her grown daughter. That makes the 3rd Mom-Daughter violence case I have taken in the past 2 years.
Tensions are rising. Times are tough.
Realtors are are struggling. Car salesmen are struggling.
Lawyers are struggling! All clients are asking for a payment plan.
We survived the freeze with plumbing in tact. The investment in PEX has been worth it.
Stay warm, stay dry!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
But but but
The White House attributes the growing and expanding economy on Bidens first two years of rule. Wow, can we take anymore of this good news?
Things are gonna get worse.
I've been thinking lately about the collapse of the dollar. The haves, the top ten percent, have amassed mountains of dollars, digital or otherwise. The lower 90% of us have little if any, some cannot even come up with $400 in an emergency.
But we still have our hands. Hands that can plant, build things, join in mutual endeavors, and most importantly, hold a weapon.
The top ten percent will try to hire us to do these things for them, but will have nothing to pay us with except worthless dollars.
Now I understand why they are in such a panic.
Or maybe I'm just dreaming.
Thanks for stopping by.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
I am on an email list
comprised of hard core right wingers. Maybe half of them are my clients.
Just last night, they were circulating a Senate bill that has 12 items that promote the taking of guns, and curtailing the right to own guns. It will be interesting to see if the Republican House will sign on with the funding of those programs.
I honestly believe the only reason we aren't all locked up in concentration camps is our guns.
I want to make it clear that the 2nd Am. isn't on my radar that much. The 1st and 5th are the primary Constitutional rights involved in my work. I grew up with guns. Everybody where I am from learned to handle firearms as kids, and it was a way of life. It wasn't anything special, as it was taken for granted.
If gun ownership does become a narrow, special right granted to just the right people, I may find myself standing with the extreme right wingers.
I will try to find a link to the bill info if anyone is interested.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Wall Street banks get $1 Trillion in profits
link
So the banks make money because the government prints it
then gives it to the banks, who in turn, give it to the corps.
Who in turn give a slice back to the legislators and ask for more.
The richest, most fraudulent merry-go-round in the universe!
A mess on wall street? Call-in the pooper scoopers on their way to
govt. office. Round and round they go...