What a day
I woke up freezing about 2 AM.
The furnace was blowing - I could hear it - but I could tell it wasn't heating by the temperature, I had set it to 60, it was too cold. I knew it wasn't propane because I had gotten two 30 pound cans the morning previous. I got up in the coolness - it couldn't have been more than 40 in the trailer - and turned it off. There's no point in burning out the motor or listening to the noise if its not going to heat.
I hate getting up when its cold, so it was well after the sun rose before I managed to work up the gumption to leave the covers and the warmth of my german shepherds (and a friend who is staying with me). I put on some clothes, and then checked out what was wrong with the furnace.
When turned on it blew, the propane gas started (could smell it on the exhaust) and the snapping noise of the ignitor all were working. I removed the ignitor and ran it that way - I could see the spark clearly. But the ends of the ignitor prongs were extremely short, burned and melted, stubby and obviously burned away. Since everything else looked good, this must not be sparking in the flame field enough to trigger fire. It needed replaced.
I called the closest RV place, which didn't have it but referred me to another place, which did. We warmed up the pickup truck and I removed the old igniter from the wiring and brought it along. We grabbed some sausage biscuits at the mcdonalds (I think i can still feel the grease in my throat) and drove to St. Joseph where Bill's RV had the part. I got the part and a few other things I had been needing for the RV while I was there, and we headed back.
In short order I had the igniter installed in the heater and it was blowing hot air into my only barely above freezing trailer. I was looking forward to a hot shower at last.
The water came on with the usual burst of air as the valve was opened then went dead.
Now I knew it wasn't frozen - not only do we have a yard hydrant (that I installed myself) but I had explicitly disconnected and drained the hose the night before in preparation for the hard frost (down to about 20 F). The sight of a rapidly forming puddle around the base of the hydrant confirmed my fears.
My job of attaching the hydrant to the polyethelene water pipe was sub-par, it had come apart. I immediately went down to the water main valve and turned it off, we got the shovels, and excavated the hydrant.
The weather was fair - sunny but distinctly cool. The job was exacerbated by the soakedness of the ground in the area - water was running back down into the hole at an alarming rate. I got my shop vac and one used it to slurp the water out of the way while the other got shovel-fulls of dirt out. After an hour or so we actually had a pretty deep hole - about 3 feet - and had located the now open-ended fittings. It was fairly obvious what had happened - one of the clamps had burst, allowing the fittings to slide apart.
The mud-covered hydrant was put in the pickup truck and we went to the farm store 'Orchelns' which is apparently pronounced 'or-shell-ens' around here. They lent us the use of their janitorial closet to rinse the mud off, then I visited the plumbing section to obtain suitable fittings. I replaced the flexi-pipe adapter, nipple, and elbow with an iron street elbow, a 6" nipple, and a 45 degree coupler.
Having returned home, I assembled these parts onto the bottom of the hydrant, reusing the original flexi-hose coupler now at a completely different angle. But how to attach it? I was gonna have to get muddy.
I took off my overshirt, sighed, and flopped down in the mud. We situated the hydrant, cut the pipe, managed to wiggle the fitting into the flexi pipe, and secure it with a fairly beefy pipe clamp that my mom found of suitable size. By the time I finished this my chest was hurting (from leanign on the side of the hole) my arms were covered in mud to my biceps, my undershirt was utterly soaked from the breast on down, and mud had made encroachments on the family jewels through my soaked pants.
We turned on the main and leak tested. Hooray, no leaks! We hooked up the RV and pressurized its water system.
At last. Copious water for showering! We delegated the backfilling of the mudhole to my 21 year old brother Michael (who had finally rolled out of bed).
I took a long, hot shower, in my now warm RV.
While I was in the shower, my mom stopped by to tell us she just got the water bill - and by the $200+ size of it, the fitting had been leaking somewhat more minorly for some time. Well, at least we found and fixed it *before* the bill arrived. Well, technically we did it after it arrived and before it was read.
So by this time it was 4PM central, 5PM Eastern - when my coworkers break out of work for their friday fun. So no work got done today at all on my job. Great. another day off work, no pay. Shit happens.
But then about 5:30PM Central I got a call from Bill - the VP over at the company in columbus where I interviewed a week or so ago.
They have my formal offer at last! He wanted to make sure he had my email right to send it over. I confirmed and he did.
The letter says in brief,
Senior Application Developer
You'll get paid 105K/year
You'll be eligible for 5K bonus paid quarterly
You get full benefits
You get two weeks vacation a year
You can get reimbursed for up to 2K moving expenses
Then the legalese about At will job, no moonlighting, arbitration, blahblah
And signed by the CEO
That, my friends, is pretty damn cool. At least the day isn't a complete wash.
And guess what? Its now 12:07 CST - which makes it officially The Fifth Of November, my birthday!
So to you, fair readers, I give this question:
Whatever shall i do to celebrate my new job and my thirty-seventh circumnavigation of the solar system?
The furnace was blowing - I could hear it - but I could tell it wasn't heating by the temperature, I had set it to 60, it was too cold. I knew it wasn't propane because I had gotten two 30 pound cans the morning previous. I got up in the coolness - it couldn't have been more than 40 in the trailer - and turned it off. There's no point in burning out the motor or listening to the noise if its not going to heat.
I hate getting up when its cold, so it was well after the sun rose before I managed to work up the gumption to leave the covers and the warmth of my german shepherds (and a friend who is staying with me). I put on some clothes, and then checked out what was wrong with the furnace.
When turned on it blew, the propane gas started (could smell it on the exhaust) and the snapping noise of the ignitor all were working. I removed the ignitor and ran it that way - I could see the spark clearly. But the ends of the ignitor prongs were extremely short, burned and melted, stubby and obviously burned away. Since everything else looked good, this must not be sparking in the flame field enough to trigger fire. It needed replaced.
I called the closest RV place, which didn't have it but referred me to another place, which did. We warmed up the pickup truck and I removed the old igniter from the wiring and brought it along. We grabbed some sausage biscuits at the mcdonalds (I think i can still feel the grease in my throat) and drove to St. Joseph where Bill's RV had the part. I got the part and a few other things I had been needing for the RV while I was there, and we headed back.
In short order I had the igniter installed in the heater and it was blowing hot air into my only barely above freezing trailer. I was looking forward to a hot shower at last.
The water came on with the usual burst of air as the valve was opened then went dead.
Now I knew it wasn't frozen - not only do we have a yard hydrant (that I installed myself) but I had explicitly disconnected and drained the hose the night before in preparation for the hard frost (down to about 20 F). The sight of a rapidly forming puddle around the base of the hydrant confirmed my fears.
My job of attaching the hydrant to the polyethelene water pipe was sub-par, it had come apart. I immediately went down to the water main valve and turned it off, we got the shovels, and excavated the hydrant.
The weather was fair - sunny but distinctly cool. The job was exacerbated by the soakedness of the ground in the area - water was running back down into the hole at an alarming rate. I got my shop vac and one used it to slurp the water out of the way while the other got shovel-fulls of dirt out. After an hour or so we actually had a pretty deep hole - about 3 feet - and had located the now open-ended fittings. It was fairly obvious what had happened - one of the clamps had burst, allowing the fittings to slide apart.
The mud-covered hydrant was put in the pickup truck and we went to the farm store 'Orchelns' which is apparently pronounced 'or-shell-ens' around here. They lent us the use of their janitorial closet to rinse the mud off, then I visited the plumbing section to obtain suitable fittings. I replaced the flexi-pipe adapter, nipple, and elbow with an iron street elbow, a 6" nipple, and a 45 degree coupler.
Having returned home, I assembled these parts onto the bottom of the hydrant, reusing the original flexi-hose coupler now at a completely different angle. But how to attach it? I was gonna have to get muddy.
I took off my overshirt, sighed, and flopped down in the mud. We situated the hydrant, cut the pipe, managed to wiggle the fitting into the flexi pipe, and secure it with a fairly beefy pipe clamp that my mom found of suitable size. By the time I finished this my chest was hurting (from leanign on the side of the hole) my arms were covered in mud to my biceps, my undershirt was utterly soaked from the breast on down, and mud had made encroachments on the family jewels through my soaked pants.
We turned on the main and leak tested. Hooray, no leaks! We hooked up the RV and pressurized its water system.
At last. Copious water for showering! We delegated the backfilling of the mudhole to my 21 year old brother Michael (who had finally rolled out of bed).
I took a long, hot shower, in my now warm RV.
While I was in the shower, my mom stopped by to tell us she just got the water bill - and by the $200+ size of it, the fitting had been leaking somewhat more minorly for some time. Well, at least we found and fixed it *before* the bill arrived. Well, technically we did it after it arrived and before it was read.
So by this time it was 4PM central, 5PM Eastern - when my coworkers break out of work for their friday fun. So no work got done today at all on my job. Great. another day off work, no pay. Shit happens.
But then about 5:30PM Central I got a call from Bill - the VP over at the company in columbus where I interviewed a week or so ago.
They have my formal offer at last! He wanted to make sure he had my email right to send it over. I confirmed and he did.
The letter says in brief,
Senior Application Developer
You'll get paid 105K/year
You'll be eligible for 5K bonus paid quarterly
You get full benefits
You get two weeks vacation a year
You can get reimbursed for up to 2K moving expenses
Then the legalese about At will job, no moonlighting, arbitration, blahblah
And signed by the CEO
That, my friends, is pretty damn cool. At least the day isn't a complete wash.
And guess what? Its now 12:07 CST - which makes it officially The Fifth Of November, my birthday!
So to you, fair readers, I give this question:
Whatever shall i do to celebrate my new job and my thirty-seventh circumnavigation of the solar system?