water

Unnecessary apology #5

Posted on by backuphill

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Kinda late with this one today, but I was busy…

Once again I am here to humbly ask your forgiveness. Once again I am sure I have offended and disappointed someone out there, so let me issue this unnecessary apology just so I can cover all my bases in all instances from now until the end of time.

I bathed. Yes, I took a bath. It was a full bath tub and I actually enjoyed it.

Sorry if that makes you mad. Sorry if that makes me “less manly” or “more feminine.”

I didn’t take it to get clean. I took it to relax. I took it because it was time to be alone and in the quiet. Call it “self-care,” whatever the heck that is.

But, here’s the thing, and I am sure there is the part that will really rile some environmentalist or climate change activest’s feathers…

…the bath tub was FULL! And, it was full with HOT water!

Like, I put as much hot water in there as possible without making it spill over the edge as I lowered my body in.

What a waste, right? Too much water and too much energy was used. I am such a bad, horrible, irresponsible person.

I am sure there are poor thirsty people somewhere in the world where I could have sent all that water. Probably some farm or garden or some dried up lake/stream that supports a lower life form that could have used that water.

What’s that you say? Oh, sorry, I had my head underwater. I couldn’t hear your protests…

Not sorry, sorry.

Sprung

Posted on by backuphill

blue clean clear dew

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Drip.

Drip.

What is that? That sound doesn’t sound like it should.

Drip.

Drip.

Nope, that isn’t a normal sound. Yes, it is raining really freaking hard outside and, yes, there is the typical sound of rain going down inside the vent pipes. This drip is different.

And there it is. Inside the furnace. In the arch way of the back entry.

Damn.

There is a leak in the roof. It is in the most troublesome section of the roof. Somewhere between the ending of the sloped house roof and the beginning of the flat garage roof. This is the spot I have worried about since I moved in. This is the spot I was planning on having fixed in the next three years knowing it was only a matter of time before it causes an issue.

Now, the rainy season is in full force and the prospect of a quick fix is null.

Now, not only a roofing company has to be involved, but likely a contractor too since we might as well work on the structural issues at the same time and do it all in one fell swoop. Oh, and on top of that, now likely a bank will be involved with a home equity line of credit or something like that….

Awesome!  **in the most sarcastic tone ever known to man**

Water is boring

Posted on by backuphill

clean clear cold drink

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What’s with water anyway?

Why is it so tasteless? Yes, I know that is a generalization and all water has a little something (chemicals/minerals/etc) that give it a “taste,” but it isn’t really a taste at the same time.

Drink more water they say…

OK, can you make it taste better without me going through the effort of adding something too it? It is just too much work. How about it just come out of the tap or, better yet, the dispenser in the fridge with some flavor?

Damn, I should patent this idea immediately! Soda machines let you choose the flavor of soda (who knew there were 435 *exaggeration* different flavors of Coke?), so why can’t my fridge do the same thing (some on Samsung, innovate that! I want credit though)? I press a button and the water that fills my bottle has a hint of lemon or a hint of lime or a hint of blackberry or a hint of mint (ewww) or a hint of fruit punch or whatever you think would be nice.

Make it happen people!

Otherwise, plain water is boring and I don’t want to drink it. But I do, reluctantly and begrudgingly.

I am not a fan

Posted on by backuphill

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How did you spend your Labor Day weekend?

Me? Oh, well, thanks for asking…I spent it laboring way too hard. It was one of those projects where I had no choice. You know, forced to do something you really had no intention of doing but are forced to do it anyway? Sucks hardcore and that ain’t no lie.

If you can read and understand the picture above, 2016 & 2017 are pretty normal readings for our house. Obviously then, you can understand that starting in February of 2018 something is going wrong. August broke the camel’s back…

No, that little blue dial isn’t a fan, it’s the water meter for the house and it isn’t supposed to look like that!

So, there was nothing left to dig, dig like you are Indiana Jones on an archeological hunt for the lost leak. By the way, whomever planted all those rocks in the yard is a damn idiot! But, that is a subject for another day. Anyway, I dug. And dug. And dug some more.

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It’s hard to get the scale from the angle of the picture, but that is about 20′ and about 36″ deep. Dug by hand, well, not just my hands but my arms, shoulders, back, and a shovel. Yeah, can you feel my pain now? No, literally, the pain…my arms and hands go numb now…anyway…

The leak has been repaired and hopefully the water meter readings go back to normal. What sucks is the repair was relatively cheap ($35) in comparison to the bill ($295+) and effort (pricele$$) to find the leak.

So, to sum up, Labor Day shouldn’t be taking quite so literally.

 

Fishing is not relaxing

Posted on by backuphill

pexels-photo-209810.jpeg

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THE activity of vacation was a fishing trip off Vancouver Island, BC, Canada (you have probably heard me talk about this a little this week). It was the whole purpose of the trip, to put fish in the boat and fill up the freezer with as much salmon and bottom fish as possible.

Well, I would like to tell you that fishing is not relaxing and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying…

Early mornings. Why is it the fish only seem to want to take the bait early in the morning? How early, well, for nearly a week it was 4:30 or 5:00am so in my case that is at least 30 minutes before I normally get up for work.

Rough waters. Now, some of you probably fish on the bank of a river or on a nice calm lake. Honestly, that isn’t fishing…if the fish you catch are less that 5 pounds, all you caught was a “water rat.” Anyway, that is beside the point. Ocean fishing involves waves. Rolling waves and choppy seas. You spend much of the time fighting to maintain your balance and the rest of the time trying not to fall overboard. Never mind the rough bouncing and banging of the boat trip just to get to the fishing spot. Yeah, not relaxing.

Stress. There is stress in fishing. Why? Well, because you want to catch fish, that is why you’re there. When you aren’t catching fish, the stress mounts because you aren’t catching fish. Each time you have a fish on and then don’t get it into the boat, the stress builds a little more until finally you’re so high strung that jumping overboard actually becomes an option.

Lost fish. With each fish that doesn’t make it into the boat, you start to wonder what you are doing wrong. “I must be doing something wrong because I’m not getting it into the boat,” you think to yourself. So you try something different, only to not have it work and then you return to what you were originally doing. Let me tell you, those thieving sons of fishies will take your bait in a heartbeat and then spit the hooks like they were tossing garbage to the curb. Frustration mounts.

Cleaning and packing. If you happen to catch fish, then you have to clean them, pack them, then ice/freeze them. The boat has to be cleaned eat night from the saltwater and the fish guts. You have to pack for a trip of uncertain weather and success. You have to unpack from the trip and do laundry, after getting very little sleep all week.

Tell me, where was the relaxing vacation again?

boats fishing boat harbor harbour

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