It’s cold in the house, and I am not talking about the actual temp.
Cold shoulder.
Silence.
Contempt.
Avoidance.
I know the reason, though I don’t agree and it certainly isn’t fair.
This isn’t a coldness that a blanket or a jacket can cover up. There is no bundling up against this kind of cold.
It cuts to the bone and straight to the heart.
Winter has set in during the middle of summer.
OK, no, I don’t wanna chill.
Seriously.
It is damn cold outside (for the NW) and it is freaking chilly inside the house.
This week the low temps up here in the Northwest corner of the US is going to be in the low 20s. That isn’t typical for us so when it gets down in this range, we tend to just break out the sweatshirts and insulated jackets and try to avoid the out of doors. Last night the low was around 27 degrees.
So, the furnace has been acting funny and last night I was pretty sure there we were headed for a breakdown. Sure enough, this morning the house was 58 degrees when it should have been 66 when I got up. The furnace has in “lockout” mode – meaning it tried, it didn’t get lit, and then it gave up…for the next three hours.
When I got up to let the dog out at 5:00am I was like, “Crap. This is rather irritating, and cold. Dang, it’s cold in here.”
I tried resetting the furnace by turning off the power and then back on again. The stupid thing gave a good effort but after three cycles of trying, I gave up and went back to bed where it was warm. After warming up a bit, I was awake. So, back out of bed I went and out to build a fire in the wood stove. I was trying to be quiet so as to not wake the others in the house. Quiet, I tell you. Only to have one of the smoke detectors decide to CHIRP for a new battery. So much for being quiet.
Anyway, fire started and going and the warmth is starting to fill the room.
I called into work and let my manager know I was going to have to deal with this issue today and took at least half the day off. (Thank goodness for flexibility!)
I disassembled the ignitors, cleaned them with sandpaper, and reinstalled them. Furnace back on, cycled through the startup process, and still nothing. So, out comes the shop vac and vacuuming the pumps, the fans, the gas feed tubes (not sure of the technical term), etc. How did I know to do this stuff? I had a tech here once who we called because this happened like 6 years ago and we had no idea why it wasn’t working. He literally came out, cleaned the stuff, and charged $125 for 15 minutes of work. He was like, “Look, you don’t need me or need to pay me for this stuff. You can do it yourself.” He showed me what to look for, where to clean, and how to take the ignitors out and clean them.
VOILA!
Everything is back up and running. “Let there be heat!”
The fireplace is all fired up (see what I did there?) but the furnace is now doing what it is supposed to. I’ll keep the fire burning so as to not drive up the gas bill while the cold is here this week, but we are back in the warmth.
Not sure how it happened. Not sure how long it will last.
Some how, the summer cold found me on the roof.
It started a couple days ago. Notice a scratchy throat and a little discomfort swallowing. Today, full blown head congestion and a nose that thinks it’s time to run a marathon.
Laying low today. (Called in sick, even though I work from home)
Guess it is time to catch up on some of my own paperwork, binge watch some shows, and play some video games. Time to rest.
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I saw a commercial last night for a weight-loss process called, cool scuplting. Apparently this is a trend that is catching on. The way I understand it is that they freeze fat cells and then when they thaw out they magically break down and vanish. At least that is what I gathered from it.
When I did a quick Google search, there are places here locally that offer this interesting (and apparently safe?) weight loss technique/process. So, I guess I could go inquire about it if I was really interested.
Is it covered by insurance? I mean, if not being overweight is more healthy then I would think this should thing should be covered by insurance.
This pandemic thing has cause me to eat. Well, actually, I always eat. It didn’t just start because of the pandemic. But, what I mean, is that it feels like I am eating all the time since I work from home. The scale says I am maintaining, but when I look in the mirror it doesn’t appear as though I am maintaining. Maybe the weight just happens to appear where the mirror can see so I feel like I am gaining weight. Again, the scale says I haven’t. But I am definitely not losing any…
Anyway, I was thinking, since I have weight I could lose, that I could maybe try this cool sculpting thing. I really don’t want to pay for it though. That’s an issue.
I do, however, have a box freezer. A big one! If all you have to do is freeze fat cells then I am set! I don’t need to visit some clinic.
I’m gonna try to clean out some stuff from the box freezer so I can lay down in there. It should only take a couple hours. I’ll freeze all that extra fat around my belly, in my face and neck area, a little on my ass….this is gonna be epic!
Once those couple hours are done, I am gonna be back to the weight was was in high school. She will hardly recognize me.
Oh, I better get started. I don’t want her to find me in the freezer.
I wanna surprise her!
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Wish me luck. I’ll probably need it.
I am headed to the walk-in clinic early this afternoon to see if there is anything they can do about the sinuses and deep lung coughing. Sleep last night was tough to come by and with a vacation coming in less than a week I am looking to kick this thing rather quickly.
Why do I need luck? Have you been to a walk-in? LOL
It takes a demonstration of extreme patience and tolerance.
It takes forever (typically) to get seen by a doc and, when you actually do see a doc it typically isn’t even a doc but a PA (physician’s assistant). I have found that care is a little suspect at that point. Plus, add in that a walk-in generally tries to rush you out once you’re in (it seems to take forever to see anyone and then once you do, you wonder why it took so long based on how long you actually got to see someone).
So, I am going to be brave and endure with the hope of some relief.
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Family was over last weekend.
They knowingly came over with colds and the little ones openly hacked, snorted, and touched everything in sight.
Now I am sick.
And tired.
It’s irritating. Really.
Why do people feel the need to expose others to their illness? Just stay home. I don’t care if you’re a relative or not. I don’t want you around.
I’ll take care to do the same.
I am going to go rest. Because typing is exhausting. Reading hurts my eyes.
I am just generally irritable…but then that isn’t all that unusual. I am that way most of the time. It is just to a higher degree today.
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I am not one to often complain about the temperature. I have, for most of my life, seemed to run at a higher temp than most so I don’t find myself shivering when it comes to “normal” temps. I am generally comfortable between 65-75 degrees.
Friday night, however, I found myself freezing, indoors, at a local restaurant. Red Robin might serve hot food, but the restaurant was cold enough to refrigerate food without a fridge. I am pretty sure the inside temp was only 7 degrees above the outside temp.
The outside temp was running somewhere around 43 degrees. It was windy and the rain was coming down in sheets – sideways. The walk from the car to the building was less than pleasant and I found the lower half of my body rather damp. The upper half was well shielded in my standard Helly Hansen jacket.
But, upon arriving at the table, my immediate comment to those there with me was that it was cold in the dining area. They agreed, as they had been sitting there for about 10 minutes waiting for everyone to arrive.
The rest of the evening, everyone was wearing jackets, sweaters, and shivering. Not exactly an inviting atmosphere for dining…
…or perhaps this cold temp was on purpose so that it would push people to leave sooner on a busy Friday night. If that’s the case, it is even more obnoxious. Upon checkout at their little computer thing, I did leave a review about the internal temp of the restaurant. Hopefully it caught someone’s attention.
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Stuffed to the max.
It appears today I will be a mouth breather…
Woke up with a stuffed nose and a tight throat. I think we all know where this is going. I am about to enter the land of flu/cold season.
Thankfully I am telecommuting (today and tomorrow) and not going to expose someone at the office. But, if it isn’t gone in a day or so, then I’ll be burning some sick days.
How are you feeling today?
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Programmers for my car’s electronics got it wrong. Not sure what the thought behind it was, but it’s irritating nonetheless.
My 2018 Kia Niro has been a great car, but after having it a year now there are a few things that bothersome. They are probably small things, but you know when you spend that much money on things you want to make sure people have spent time on the little things because that’s what makes it stand apart from the others.
Well, there are two issues that both have to do with the way the Defrost functions work.
First, the defrost for the windshield has a weird setting. When the function is set to be used, the fan automatically comes on at Level 3, EVERY TIME you start the car and no matter where it was previously set. Thus, it starts blowing cold air the second the car starts. I am constantly turning down the fan. I do like to always have the fan running for air glow, but it would really be nice if it just stayed at the level I set it rather than resetting itself every dang time.
Finally, the Rear Defrost button does’t have an automatic turnoff timer. It just stays on and on and on, until you look down and see it is still on and turn it off. How stupid is that? I think every car I have own previously had an automatic timer on that function.
I was recently asked if I had found anything I didn’t like about the car. There are very many things I could name off. These were two that came up right off the top of my head.
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Not that serious of a post today.
I am home sick because the office crud has finally caught up to me and I am feeling under the weather.
Headache. Stuffy nose. Run down.
It’s fine, right? I should have gone into work, right?
Anyway, simple post today just to whine about health for a moment.
How about you? Do you tough it out and go to work or do you stay at home the first inkling of a cold?
Piss and Moan 