div style="padding: 3px; width: 400px; text-align: center;">Lyrics | Ramones lyrics - Pinhead lyrics
Radio Rut (Now that would be a good song name)...
Since March of 2012 or slightly before I've had my car radio set to the Pearl Jam station on Sirius satellite radio. During that time about 40,000 miles have been traveled so even at an average speed of 30 MPH that's somewhere around 1300 hours of Eddie Vedder, or at 60 MPH about 650 hours. I still don't know hardly any of the lyrics but I've enjoyed the live concerts, especially in South America and I know some melodies. A couple of days ago someone at a concert was recognized and dragged on stage because they had attended 100 concerts. Assuming a standard three-hour concert this guy is at about three hundred hours; a mere quarter of my time.
In a moment of weakness I switched to the classic vinyl channel and hear the Ramones with "I don't want to be a pinhead." Well, I'm not sure what a pinhead actually is but I'm assuming it's something sort of nerdy and I certainly wish to bring the nerd component of my life to one of less prominence.
Wrapping The Past and Unwrapping The Future...
I'm now referring to my 27-year gig simply as "the place I used to work" and it's occupying much less of my thought. Another significant insight was alluded to yesterday. The future (for me) does not reside behind a flat glass panel. It resides in my hands and it's awkward for me to say, but it resides in my heart. This is good.
January 15th or so...
Mid-January is my revised day to a new job/consulting/business schedule. You can only do what you can do and I have a lot of undone items that I'm working on. The backlog is a big smaller.
Novel Update...
My sleep patterns have been awful and I seem to wake up with winter barometric pressure changes and for all the other reasons that an over-60 guy wakes up. At those moments I pick up the trilogy of high-tech novels that I'm reading as a bit of a training ground for a novel idea that my better half has planted in my head. Putting together a six hundred page novel has always seemed a bit overwhelming but with closer scrutiny it's clear that the dialogue and verbiage is not complex and simply wrapped around some intertwined plot lines. I can do this.
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Friday, December 13, 2013
#73 12/13/13 "They Haven't Made The Perfect Job" & Looking At Things Differently
It's been a number of days of broken things, faulty parts and ideas a bit porous. My daughter had a problem with her sewer line which has been problematic on and off since purchasing her house a few years ago. In the city we expect things to go away when we flip the handle. Rural residents are more familiar with those downward directed deposits coming back. The Roto-Rooter guy showed up at eight o'clock and I showed up at eight-fifteen so the daughter/homeowner could go off to her business where something else would probably break, too, or they would run out of critical cafe components.
The Roto-Rooter guy was not a young guy but diligently dragged the monster clean-out machine down the steps and started his work. Having been in the driver's seat of one of those devices a few times I'm thinking about slime-avoidance and the inevitable moment when the snake snags on something bad and becomes irretrievable. On a good day it all goes out and back in and at some point in forty to eighty feet of twirling the obstacle is scraped away and it gurgles and we're back in happy-land with the downward-directed home refuse moving and becoming the responsibility and property of the city sanitary workers who dump it in the Mississippi.
He was pretty quiet and it took about fifteen minutes of me telling every sewer story I could think of and asking him all the details of his snake before I got him talking. It was a nice snake and had a power option to push the snake out and to retrieve it. Nice. Finally, upon inquiry, he responded that he had worked for Roto-Rooter for thirty-two years. As a twenty-seven year washout of the corporate sewer world I was impressed and responded " well they must be a good company to work for or you must really like the work." It's a manageable job. You receive work orders via your smart phone application or a phone call, drive to the location, lug in your machine and a toolbox with a BFH and the ever present ChannelLock, open up the cleanout, do your thing, pack up, clean up, get paid, leave and start on the next work order.
This kind of job probably pays OK, you get to work independently and have time to think about things other than making money for your employer. Wanting to know how he felt about this as a career I pressed a bit and received a two-point response. "They have not made the perfect job, yet." "You have to learn how to let a lot of things go."
In my twenty-seven year gig letting things go was not my standard route because you had to get things done, keep things working and advance the whole environment...all the time. This notion mentioned in yesterday's post of getting your materials together, get your hands dirty and make things, not anticipating the next world-changing product but just plugging along and good work will emerge probably is complimented by the advice to let a lot of things go. You're not going to be an expert at everything and it's probably unusual to be an expert at anything. Just work and try to be good and let things go.
Some of the sewer cleaning people who've worked on my daughter's outbound lines have created horrible images of collapsing sewer tile and monster trees sending their tentacle roots into the sewer lines to create multiple obstacles and problems. High-tech people have sent cameras through the line and shared images of all the problems. The doomsday sewer people always follow it up with business cards for plumbers and solutions costing thousands of dollars. The Roto-Rooter guy charged $229 and recommended six-month followups with a big dose of copper sulfate to kill the tree roots and then "...you never have to call us again." "Like the Maytag repairman?" "Just like that."
So the lesson of the day is to let things go that you cannot deal with and probably a few that you should deal with and the day will go better and it might be a nice thirty-two year gig. Be good at whatever it is that you like to do or what you might be good enough to do.
On a very positive, bonus note, while standing in my daughter's basement I saw my green Igloo cooler from 1974 that I've been looking for since 2008. While that cooler has nothing to do with crafting a job/career plan there are a lot of stories and memories. I was glad to see it one more time and I hope that my daughter and her household add some good stories of their own.
It's still unseasonably cold. I'm burning lots of wood. That's a job in and of itself. You have to let things go and I'm officially deciding today to spend 12/13 through 1/15 re-visiting the LHH resources, picking up a couple of skill refreshers done on their learning/knowledge site and finishing a languishing web project. That's the plan.
Oh, yes, as I was driving home my daughter called and asked me to pick up something at the restaurant supply place. "Sure, I can do that. I don't even have a dumb job." At the supply place I tried to used my electronic ID but failed because I was using my Veterans Administration card. A nice person identified the problem. And so it goes without a dumb job.
The Roto-Rooter guy was not a young guy but diligently dragged the monster clean-out machine down the steps and started his work. Having been in the driver's seat of one of those devices a few times I'm thinking about slime-avoidance and the inevitable moment when the snake snags on something bad and becomes irretrievable. On a good day it all goes out and back in and at some point in forty to eighty feet of twirling the obstacle is scraped away and it gurgles and we're back in happy-land with the downward-directed home refuse moving and becoming the responsibility and property of the city sanitary workers who dump it in the Mississippi.
He was pretty quiet and it took about fifteen minutes of me telling every sewer story I could think of and asking him all the details of his snake before I got him talking. It was a nice snake and had a power option to push the snake out and to retrieve it. Nice. Finally, upon inquiry, he responded that he had worked for Roto-Rooter for thirty-two years. As a twenty-seven year washout of the corporate sewer world I was impressed and responded " well they must be a good company to work for or you must really like the work." It's a manageable job. You receive work orders via your smart phone application or a phone call, drive to the location, lug in your machine and a toolbox with a BFH and the ever present ChannelLock, open up the cleanout, do your thing, pack up, clean up, get paid, leave and start on the next work order.
This kind of job probably pays OK, you get to work independently and have time to think about things other than making money for your employer. Wanting to know how he felt about this as a career I pressed a bit and received a two-point response. "They have not made the perfect job, yet." "You have to learn how to let a lot of things go."
In my twenty-seven year gig letting things go was not my standard route because you had to get things done, keep things working and advance the whole environment...all the time. This notion mentioned in yesterday's post of getting your materials together, get your hands dirty and make things, not anticipating the next world-changing product but just plugging along and good work will emerge probably is complimented by the advice to let a lot of things go. You're not going to be an expert at everything and it's probably unusual to be an expert at anything. Just work and try to be good and let things go.
Some of the sewer cleaning people who've worked on my daughter's outbound lines have created horrible images of collapsing sewer tile and monster trees sending their tentacle roots into the sewer lines to create multiple obstacles and problems. High-tech people have sent cameras through the line and shared images of all the problems. The doomsday sewer people always follow it up with business cards for plumbers and solutions costing thousands of dollars. The Roto-Rooter guy charged $229 and recommended six-month followups with a big dose of copper sulfate to kill the tree roots and then "...you never have to call us again." "Like the Maytag repairman?" "Just like that."
So the lesson of the day is to let things go that you cannot deal with and probably a few that you should deal with and the day will go better and it might be a nice thirty-two year gig. Be good at whatever it is that you like to do or what you might be good enough to do.
On a very positive, bonus note, while standing in my daughter's basement I saw my green Igloo cooler from 1974 that I've been looking for since 2008. While that cooler has nothing to do with crafting a job/career plan there are a lot of stories and memories. I was glad to see it one more time and I hope that my daughter and her household add some good stories of their own.
It's still unseasonably cold. I'm burning lots of wood. That's a job in and of itself. You have to let things go and I'm officially deciding today to spend 12/13 through 1/15 re-visiting the LHH resources, picking up a couple of skill refreshers done on their learning/knowledge site and finishing a languishing web project. That's the plan.
Oh, yes, as I was driving home my daughter called and asked me to pick up something at the restaurant supply place. "Sure, I can do that. I don't even have a dumb job." At the supply place I tried to used my electronic ID but failed because I was using my Veterans Administration card. A nice person identified the problem. And so it goes without a dumb job.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
It's Amazing How Long This All Lasts... (#72 / THU / 12-12-13)
It's Amazing How Long This All Lasts...
My better half and I have done a few more than twenty senior moves of relatives entrenched in their homes for thirty years who then transition to senior housing, assisting living, long term care and the last move. While visiting my ninety-seven year old aunt who lives in independent senior living we talked about some health and personal care issues that I never would have anticipated, like really personal things on and in and coming out of a very elderly lady's body. Of course her friends are all gone so her sixty-two year old nephew gets to deal with that.
There was some frustration on her part that during a recent doctor appointment for a physical she did not have to remove her clothes. My mother at about ninety started to complain, too, about not getting to take her clothes off for the doctor. To both of them I said that they were probably the oldest people the doctor had actually talked to who actually had their wits about them and were more interested in the genetics or lifestyle that kept them alive more than about something that might do them in deep into their nineties. What are you going to do if you find some issue on a 95 year old. I'd send them home to eat Ben and Jerry's and to have a smoke.
After running through a discourse on doctors and medication she remarked "It's amazing how long this all lasts..." referring to her body. I commented that it was amazing that she still had her mental capacities about her. "Oh, do you think so?" "Yes, let's have some ice cream."
December & January Issues...
Last December and January were a test of my personal resilience with three family deaths, car accidents and a flurry of family health issues. This December is a test of my personal resilience with sequential vehicle issues, HVAC issues, plumbing issues, time management issues and a sore should from throwing snow back on my neighbor's driveway after they blew it on mine. We'll see what January brings.
"Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Kleon
Repeating comments two days in a row or in close days or the same week is probably bad style but this is really a good book. Not often do I read a book twice and I've never read a book twice in two days but that's what happened. The advice that has been running through my head in my six-hour, two hundred mile visit to my aunt (other than when yacking with her) was the same thing that I've felt for a decade. You need to get your hands dirty, jump into the material and the tools and the ideas and move some stuff around and good work will emerge; there will be some dogs, too, but really good things come from the foundations of creative work. All of my art that is good was not planned, but if I just thought about it nothing happened. Even practice pieces were of little value. You need to go out on the two inch ice and hope for the best.
I am also of the opinion, like Mr. Kleon, that very little really creative work comes from sitting in front of a flat glass panel with out hands on the old QWERTY device....the exception of course being what we create in a literary sense but it's possible that a notebook, good pens and some Post-It notes would moves us along more quickly ( I do hold Post-It notes in the highest regard for enabling great things in business and personal lives, perhaps more than the personal computer). I'd give up my iPhone before I'd give up Post-It Notes.
Ongoing Commitments...
Between ideas and mediums I wish/need to pursue and this crazy backlog of life tasks I'm 97% certain I'm going to stall any consulting pursuits until mid-January.
My better half and I have done a few more than twenty senior moves of relatives entrenched in their homes for thirty years who then transition to senior housing, assisting living, long term care and the last move. While visiting my ninety-seven year old aunt who lives in independent senior living we talked about some health and personal care issues that I never would have anticipated, like really personal things on and in and coming out of a very elderly lady's body. Of course her friends are all gone so her sixty-two year old nephew gets to deal with that.
There was some frustration on her part that during a recent doctor appointment for a physical she did not have to remove her clothes. My mother at about ninety started to complain, too, about not getting to take her clothes off for the doctor. To both of them I said that they were probably the oldest people the doctor had actually talked to who actually had their wits about them and were more interested in the genetics or lifestyle that kept them alive more than about something that might do them in deep into their nineties. What are you going to do if you find some issue on a 95 year old. I'd send them home to eat Ben and Jerry's and to have a smoke.
After running through a discourse on doctors and medication she remarked "It's amazing how long this all lasts..." referring to her body. I commented that it was amazing that she still had her mental capacities about her. "Oh, do you think so?" "Yes, let's have some ice cream."
December & January Issues...
Last December and January were a test of my personal resilience with three family deaths, car accidents and a flurry of family health issues. This December is a test of my personal resilience with sequential vehicle issues, HVAC issues, plumbing issues, time management issues and a sore should from throwing snow back on my neighbor's driveway after they blew it on mine. We'll see what January brings.
"Steal Like An Artist" by Austin Kleon
Repeating comments two days in a row or in close days or the same week is probably bad style but this is really a good book. Not often do I read a book twice and I've never read a book twice in two days but that's what happened. The advice that has been running through my head in my six-hour, two hundred mile visit to my aunt (other than when yacking with her) was the same thing that I've felt for a decade. You need to get your hands dirty, jump into the material and the tools and the ideas and move some stuff around and good work will emerge; there will be some dogs, too, but really good things come from the foundations of creative work. All of my art that is good was not planned, but if I just thought about it nothing happened. Even practice pieces were of little value. You need to go out on the two inch ice and hope for the best.
I am also of the opinion, like Mr. Kleon, that very little really creative work comes from sitting in front of a flat glass panel with out hands on the old QWERTY device....the exception of course being what we create in a literary sense but it's possible that a notebook, good pens and some Post-It notes would moves us along more quickly ( I do hold Post-It notes in the highest regard for enabling great things in business and personal lives, perhaps more than the personal computer). I'd give up my iPhone before I'd give up Post-It Notes.
Ongoing Commitments...
Between ideas and mediums I wish/need to pursue and this crazy backlog of life tasks I'm 97% certain I'm going to stall any consulting pursuits until mid-January.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Day #71 / WED / 12/11/13
Weathering The Weather
The pre-holiday cold continues to challenge us. A water main down the street broke and one of our vehicles failed to start this AM. The water main did not affect us but I did have several moments of appreciation that I did not have to work outside last night. During my many years in the commercial construction industry there was not a day that I did not appreciate the work of the people out in the cold and the heat dodging falling things and trying not to fall themselves.
This afternoon I pulled a set of jumper cables and prepared to hook a working vehicle to a non-working vehicle but one of the clamps was missing. The cables are kept in a five gallon bucket in the back up the pickup along with a tow strap, a couple of chains and an empty Monster can. Some digging around located the clamp. Generally speaking I've found it advantageous to leave a screwdriver (multi-bit) and a vice-grip in every vehicle and tool box I own. While I could have used a big hammer everything was put back into working order. A trip to Wal-Mart for a discount battery was marked by the especially interesting crowds. It was only -4 F so I actually could work without gloves to get the new battery in and this vehicle did not require one to have two additional joints in your arm to get everything in place.
Creative Foundation
I'm working on an outline for a novel. I have outlines for a couple of business books but after seventy days of not going in an office or cubicle I'm having a short vacation from that sort of environment. It's likely that I'll hold back on business writing and cubicle/office pursuits until after the first of the year. Most of my executive peers hated the concept but I'm pretty certain that not much happens between Thanksgiving and the first of the year other than strategic planning, budgeting and holiday parties.
As pre-work for the novel I'm reading a trilogy by Daniel Suarez that starts with Daemon. It's a pop literature novel with lots of information technology content and large scale internet gaming plots. I've gone down this path a few times, reading all the work by a particular novelist or trilogies to get a sense of characters, plots, dialogue, etc. Like most language challenges (that would include Ruby on Rails) it requires seat time and I'm having some trouble getting seat time.
One of the challenges in this creative space is thinking that your work has to be all that special. Austin Kleon's work sort of slaps you on the side of your head and trashes that notion of it being all that special. I'm grinding through Steal Like An Artist and will digest his other work shortly. There are a lot of books like these that I wish I'd read a long, long time ago.
Feedback and Vacuum
The winter season means more time in the shop extracting folk art and primitive craft items from trees that have been spared from death by fire. I've linked up with other like crafters on Facebook and that has been very positive. There are people who appreciate art although it mostly other people creating art; there's a shortage of buyers unless you are really good or talented but at least the craft people like to exchange and comment on other's work. LHH has some live sessions where out of work executives get together and network and plan. I've not attended any of those. I should. My default tendency is to work independently. I might not recognize that as a vacuum.
The pre-holiday cold continues to challenge us. A water main down the street broke and one of our vehicles failed to start this AM. The water main did not affect us but I did have several moments of appreciation that I did not have to work outside last night. During my many years in the commercial construction industry there was not a day that I did not appreciate the work of the people out in the cold and the heat dodging falling things and trying not to fall themselves.
This afternoon I pulled a set of jumper cables and prepared to hook a working vehicle to a non-working vehicle but one of the clamps was missing. The cables are kept in a five gallon bucket in the back up the pickup along with a tow strap, a couple of chains and an empty Monster can. Some digging around located the clamp. Generally speaking I've found it advantageous to leave a screwdriver (multi-bit) and a vice-grip in every vehicle and tool box I own. While I could have used a big hammer everything was put back into working order. A trip to Wal-Mart for a discount battery was marked by the especially interesting crowds. It was only -4 F so I actually could work without gloves to get the new battery in and this vehicle did not require one to have two additional joints in your arm to get everything in place.
Creative Foundation
I'm working on an outline for a novel. I have outlines for a couple of business books but after seventy days of not going in an office or cubicle I'm having a short vacation from that sort of environment. It's likely that I'll hold back on business writing and cubicle/office pursuits until after the first of the year. Most of my executive peers hated the concept but I'm pretty certain that not much happens between Thanksgiving and the first of the year other than strategic planning, budgeting and holiday parties.
As pre-work for the novel I'm reading a trilogy by Daniel Suarez that starts with Daemon. It's a pop literature novel with lots of information technology content and large scale internet gaming plots. I've gone down this path a few times, reading all the work by a particular novelist or trilogies to get a sense of characters, plots, dialogue, etc. Like most language challenges (that would include Ruby on Rails) it requires seat time and I'm having some trouble getting seat time.
One of the challenges in this creative space is thinking that your work has to be all that special. Austin Kleon's work sort of slaps you on the side of your head and trashes that notion of it being all that special. I'm grinding through Steal Like An Artist and will digest his other work shortly. There are a lot of books like these that I wish I'd read a long, long time ago.
Feedback and Vacuum
The winter season means more time in the shop extracting folk art and primitive craft items from trees that have been spared from death by fire. I've linked up with other like crafters on Facebook and that has been very positive. There are people who appreciate art although it mostly other people creating art; there's a shortage of buyers unless you are really good or talented but at least the craft people like to exchange and comment on other's work. LHH has some live sessions where out of work executives get together and network and plan. I've not attended any of those. I should. My default tendency is to work independently. I might not recognize that as a vacuum.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Day 70...TUE...12/10/13
Gimme...
My furnace, fireplace, water (solid), alarm issues were followed up by more cold and vehicle issues. It's turned into a fourteen hour days with little to show for it except receipts.
Without further explanation, thought or sense of writing failure I'm taking a blog gimme for 12/10/13.
My furnace, fireplace, water (solid), alarm issues were followed up by more cold and vehicle issues. It's turned into a fourteen hour days with little to show for it except receipts.
Without further explanation, thought or sense of writing failure I'm taking a blog gimme for 12/10/13.
68 + 69 = 137 SUN-MON Oh boy....
Catch-Up & Ketchup
Heading 'up north' was delayed a bit on the home front but it did happen. With a stop for coffee and donuts (how did my life come to this) I was northbound by 12:30, perhaps 1:00 with the next stop planned for Pine City. The bottom of the Ketchup bottle has been the top of the contents since at least August. Wal-Mart seemed like a good stop. Somehow the stop for Ketchup ended up being $100 after picking up another 'milk house' electric heater and miscellaneous other food stuffs.
Background
The up north home hit a low SAT night of -27 F and at 4:00 AM the security company called me to let me know that there were a temperature alert. I don't know what temperature that kicks off on but the sensor is on the walk out level which is usually about twelve degrees cooler than the main floor where I'd left the thermostat set at either 50 F or 52 F last weekend. A few years ago I purchased a Freeze Alarm which has saved me several times. You can call into the Freeze Alarm and it will also call you. That's also placed on the lower level and it calls at 42 F and it had been calling me since SAT evening. SUN when I called in it was 38 F and at noon it was 37 F so I knew there was an issue.
Snow
About two feet of snow had fallen but fortunately I'd blown about half of it before leaving. Upon arrival I blasted through the new stuff (thanks 4WD). Inside the thermostat showed the furnace to be on but it was dead quiet with no fire in the beast. Downstairs I hit the reset button on the furnace and it roared to life. There is also a milk house heater hooked up to an outlet that turns it on at 45 F. That was not on until I kicked it.
Luck is more intuitive that we think. Adding some clothes I headed outside to get rid of the additional snow which took another 1.5 hours.
Bad, Bad, Bad...
Back in the house I went to the walk out level and turned on the water and then proceed to start a fire in the wood stove. When cold (as it was) I need to open a window to get the draft going. The windows were frozen shut so I opened the door but still had a major smoke backup and spent a good twenty minutes getting the fire working correctly.
As I headed back to the stairs I saw massive amounts of water coming through the ceiling. Eight years ago we had a major freeze issue. That led to the purchase of the Freeze Alarm. At first I thought the kitchen sink was overflowing. When I leave I open all the faucets and then turn the water off. Running upstairs I saw that the sink faucet was off but water was flowing out from under the dishwasher. Running downstairs I turned off the water for the house and went back up on a freeze/crack/leak. The water feed to the dishwasher froze. Fortunately there was a shutoff under the sink. Cleanup took several hours.
Today the input lines for the washer (also in the kitchen) showed signs of leakage.
When it was time to go there was a complicated issue with the alarm system and the monitoring company that took another couple of hours to resolve. It's not worth describing.
There's an App for That...
Really what I wanted to do was be able to pull out my phone and see what the temperature is at the remote location. Calling into the Freeze Alarm will give you the temperature and power situation but it's a little complicated and a commitment of a solid five minutes. Amazon searches showed an interesting solution that allows you to see the current temperature and history on you smart phone for $11 per year and the wireless device which is $75. I also ordered a second device for $45 and will put one on each level. All of the customer reviews on Amazon said the customer service for this product was somewhere between non-existent and awful. I does do what I want but will be a problem when the power goes out according to all the reviews which said it fails on a power re-set.
Paranoia is a good thing. I just called the Freeze Alarm which said it is 50 degrees. The thermostat was left at 58 F so it appears the furnace is cycling correctly after the reset. That was the second time in eleven years that I hit the reset. I have no idea what the failure issue was either time.
Jobs & Careers...
This was two days where a job would have cost me a lot in terms of further freeze damage. It's clear now why people sell their MN properties and head to AZ. Trying to fight the cold in person is difficult but fighting it in absences is even more complicated and challenging.
Tomorrow...LHH
Heading 'up north' was delayed a bit on the home front but it did happen. With a stop for coffee and donuts (how did my life come to this) I was northbound by 12:30, perhaps 1:00 with the next stop planned for Pine City. The bottom of the Ketchup bottle has been the top of the contents since at least August. Wal-Mart seemed like a good stop. Somehow the stop for Ketchup ended up being $100 after picking up another 'milk house' electric heater and miscellaneous other food stuffs.
Background
The up north home hit a low SAT night of -27 F and at 4:00 AM the security company called me to let me know that there were a temperature alert. I don't know what temperature that kicks off on but the sensor is on the walk out level which is usually about twelve degrees cooler than the main floor where I'd left the thermostat set at either 50 F or 52 F last weekend. A few years ago I purchased a Freeze Alarm which has saved me several times. You can call into the Freeze Alarm and it will also call you. That's also placed on the lower level and it calls at 42 F and it had been calling me since SAT evening. SUN when I called in it was 38 F and at noon it was 37 F so I knew there was an issue.
Snow
About two feet of snow had fallen but fortunately I'd blown about half of it before leaving. Upon arrival I blasted through the new stuff (thanks 4WD). Inside the thermostat showed the furnace to be on but it was dead quiet with no fire in the beast. Downstairs I hit the reset button on the furnace and it roared to life. There is also a milk house heater hooked up to an outlet that turns it on at 45 F. That was not on until I kicked it.
Luck is more intuitive that we think. Adding some clothes I headed outside to get rid of the additional snow which took another 1.5 hours.
Bad, Bad, Bad...
Back in the house I went to the walk out level and turned on the water and then proceed to start a fire in the wood stove. When cold (as it was) I need to open a window to get the draft going. The windows were frozen shut so I opened the door but still had a major smoke backup and spent a good twenty minutes getting the fire working correctly.
As I headed back to the stairs I saw massive amounts of water coming through the ceiling. Eight years ago we had a major freeze issue. That led to the purchase of the Freeze Alarm. At first I thought the kitchen sink was overflowing. When I leave I open all the faucets and then turn the water off. Running upstairs I saw that the sink faucet was off but water was flowing out from under the dishwasher. Running downstairs I turned off the water for the house and went back up on a freeze/crack/leak. The water feed to the dishwasher froze. Fortunately there was a shutoff under the sink. Cleanup took several hours.
Today the input lines for the washer (also in the kitchen) showed signs of leakage.
When it was time to go there was a complicated issue with the alarm system and the monitoring company that took another couple of hours to resolve. It's not worth describing.
There's an App for That...
Really what I wanted to do was be able to pull out my phone and see what the temperature is at the remote location. Calling into the Freeze Alarm will give you the temperature and power situation but it's a little complicated and a commitment of a solid five minutes. Amazon searches showed an interesting solution that allows you to see the current temperature and history on you smart phone for $11 per year and the wireless device which is $75. I also ordered a second device for $45 and will put one on each level. All of the customer reviews on Amazon said the customer service for this product was somewhere between non-existent and awful. I does do what I want but will be a problem when the power goes out according to all the reviews which said it fails on a power re-set.
Paranoia is a good thing. I just called the Freeze Alarm which said it is 50 degrees. The thermostat was left at 58 F so it appears the furnace is cycling correctly after the reset. That was the second time in eleven years that I hit the reset. I have no idea what the failure issue was either time.
Jobs & Careers...
This was two days where a job would have cost me a lot in terms of further freeze damage. It's clear now why people sell their MN properties and head to AZ. Trying to fight the cold in person is difficult but fighting it in absences is even more complicated and challenging.
Tomorrow...LHH
December 7, Day #67, Saturday
December 7...
Today should probably be a national holiday but so should 9/11 and a lot of other dates. All of our nations and states and rogue beliefs do a lot of killing.
-11 Fahrenheit...
On Thursday I had good intentions of a productive, networking, planning sort of day. The weather this week certainly has been such that one should remain inside next to something that is burning but we are drawn out for practical matters such as snow removal but we seem to want to test the weather. Signs warn us not to touch hot things or not to jump into the hot springs or warn us that the water is too cold for swimming but we go right ahead and try it. Outside we go without enough clothes, too light a jacket, not hat or generally in a test mode only to suffer or run back inside or think "next time I'll..." It's not even the middle of December and I'm ready for spring, or Arizona.
AC/DC...
If you cannot control your distractions, putting some time frames around a particular indulgence you might as well immerse yourself. In one of my previous posts I mentioned a gentleman whose best advice to writers was to "write about what you know" even if the only thing you knew well was your dog. Don't attempt science fiction when your expertise is dog smiles. I'm thinking I might as well write about my distractions from gainful employment.
I've been listening to my favorite music podcast website and have been distracted and listening to the fourth song in the current podcast which is It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n Roll). I'm not sure if that means getting to the top of anything is hard if you are distracted by R 'n R or if it is about getting to the top of R 'n R. Regardless, I've listened to it about ten times today while writing and working and here I am writing about a primary distraction of the day. I'm at a loss.
Forward...
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I might simply need more privacy. I'm far astray from the original intent of this blog. Entrepreneurs frequently have a number of businesses fail before finding success. There's no reason to expect creative endeavors to be any different.
Today should probably be a national holiday but so should 9/11 and a lot of other dates. All of our nations and states and rogue beliefs do a lot of killing.
-11 Fahrenheit...
On Thursday I had good intentions of a productive, networking, planning sort of day. The weather this week certainly has been such that one should remain inside next to something that is burning but we are drawn out for practical matters such as snow removal but we seem to want to test the weather. Signs warn us not to touch hot things or not to jump into the hot springs or warn us that the water is too cold for swimming but we go right ahead and try it. Outside we go without enough clothes, too light a jacket, not hat or generally in a test mode only to suffer or run back inside or think "next time I'll..." It's not even the middle of December and I'm ready for spring, or Arizona.
AC/DC...
If you cannot control your distractions, putting some time frames around a particular indulgence you might as well immerse yourself. In one of my previous posts I mentioned a gentleman whose best advice to writers was to "write about what you know" even if the only thing you knew well was your dog. Don't attempt science fiction when your expertise is dog smiles. I'm thinking I might as well write about my distractions from gainful employment.
I've been listening to my favorite music podcast website and have been distracted and listening to the fourth song in the current podcast which is It's A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock 'n Roll). I'm not sure if that means getting to the top of anything is hard if you are distracted by R 'n R or if it is about getting to the top of R 'n R. Regardless, I've listened to it about ten times today while writing and working and here I am writing about a primary distraction of the day. I'm at a loss.
Forward...
.JPG)
I might simply need more privacy. I'm far astray from the original intent of this blog. Entrepreneurs frequently have a number of businesses fail before finding success. There's no reason to expect creative endeavors to be any different.
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