Ups and Downs

The list of things I don't like is fairly long, fortunately the list of things I like is much longer - this may simply be a symptom of inexperience.

Basal Cell Carcinoma sucks, although for a cancer it's pretty much a light weight.   I had 6 removed today,  more in a few months - the pain from the cauterization is starting to kick in - no fun at all.   This is the result of getting treated for serious acne as a teen, by an IDIOT.  They used X-Ray treatment, which did no good what so ever - and 40+ years later resulted in a surprising amount of BCC.    They don't do that any more, probably because it didn't work for shit, and resulted in cancer - I'm pretty sure that doesn't fit the "Do no harm" clause. 

I'm not overly fond of plumbing.  My recent water heater failure prompted me to fix a few other plumbing related issues.  I'd say it's gone swimmingly but that would be an exaggeration in multiple directions - at no point in the project did I create a pool of water deep enough to wade in let alone swim in, nor did the project go very well.

Generally soldering copper pipe is a trivial task.  Until now, I've only had one joint fail on me and that was due to not having drained a feed line, and the joint cooled on me before I got full flow of the solder. Annoying to fix but not really difficult.   This time I had a joint - worse one part of a T joint fail on me 3 times, I finally pulled the offending section of pipe and soldered in a short stub and added a shark bite fitting to tie it back into the rest of the system.

I managed to cross thread a sediment Y-strainer with a back-flush on it, plastic body - copper connector, very sad.  Tried to fix the threads a few times, no luck, cranked it down and tried it - it looked to be working but the next day it had a very slow drip.   Ripped it out and put in a inline sediment filter with no back-flush.  It's a GE model, it now has a very very slow leak on both sides - I'll probably have to shut down the water and undo the fittings and wrap even more teflon tape on it that I did the first time - or perhaps some joint compound if I can find something that works with plastic (the filter housing) and brass (adapter for 3/4" copper).  Oh joy.

Completely redid the back-flush drain on the whole house filter - many hours of crawling around in a 40" crawlspace.   That really sucked.

The fittings on the whole house filter/softener are interesting.  The slip fit with O-rings and have these funny metal clips on each side to keep the parts from separating under pressure - if you don't tighten the screws holding the clips well enough - they separate and you get very very wet.  The second time went much better.

I should have hot water today (between back and shoulder injuries suffered between the start of the project and today - I've been with out hot water for over two weeks - that really sucked.

In hindsight I probably should have called a plumber but I hate paying someone else to do things I can and have done before.   I've done plumping, Iron pipe, copper pipe, PVC, CPVC, ABS, toilets, sinks, water heaters, gas plumbing - it's not that hard, but every once in a while, things don't go perfectly - then it gets messy.  I've done electrical (home, car, boat), electronics, carpentry, cabinet making, roofing, cement work (sucks big time).   Aside from help lifting, I have no doubt that I can build an entire house starting with a lot with a well (never drilled a well - don't want to buy the equipment to try either).    Out of all of that - Cement slabs are one thing I'll contract out with out a second thought.

I'm toying with rebuilding the engine in my Boxster - it really only needs a new main seal and a new IMS bearing so I probably won't.  I have too many other house projects to get done first.

On the UP side, I started playing Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter a few days ago - I like it.   Better than Black Ops for me.

Got a few new CD's - that's always a good thing too.