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Dani and I went to Casbah tonight to celebrate our anniversary. It was very nice. I got the halibut with cream-tomato sauce (described as "tomato fondue") over herbed riscotti, which was fabulous. Dani got the lamb in mustard sauce, which he thought was good but not as good as the fish. We also had a plate of assorted French cheeses with names I can't even spell, let alonr pronounce, and two of them were excellent. Dani wrote the names down so we can go looking for them.
This morning we had another air-conditioner contractor in. Based on a tip we got from my brother-in-law ("Mitsubishi ductless"), we found this particular contractor (who actually wants to sell us "Fujitsu ductless" for about a third less). The way it works is they put a unit on an outside wall (up by the ceiling, where it's out of the way), run a small duct through that wall to the outside of your house, and run that down to a compressor. It's not a central-air solution, but this contractor thought that two of these (in specific locations) augmented by a ceiling fan in the hall would cool the second floor. I have no idea what this costs, but he'll send us a bid. Meanwhile, one of Dani's coworkers told him that window air conditioners have gotten much quieter recently, so we may try to go browsing. I don't know how Dani will evaluate noise, though, and he's the one with the noise complaint. I can sleep through a running window AC with no problem. Snoring bothers me; white noise doesn't.
We also had a plumber in this morning to look at a drainage problem we're having. He's convinced that we need to dig up our yard (and tear up our patio, and tear down our fence so they can get the equipment in) and replace the main sewer line. We declined. They want to charge us $10k (excuse me, $9995 -- sound suspicious?) to do this work; that's an awful lot of semi-annual $100 visits from people with snakes. I am curious whether there is a solution that involves blasting high-pressure water through the line periodically to clear out gunk, but I didn't think of that until this evening.
I came home tonight to find the bulb in the light socket under the basement steps "broken". It was off, so I thought it was burned out. I grabbed the bulb to start twisting, and a hunk of glass came off in my hands. (The plumber was working there, so I'm betting he bumped it with his snake or something.) This left me with the question of how to remove the remnants of the bulb from a socket that might or might not be live right now. (Hmm, which way is it toggled?) I couldn't trace the line to the breaker box, so we ended up having to power-cycle the house. Whee. But it's fixed now. Needle-nose pliers are your friend.
I think I will be disappointed by the end of the TV show "Earth: Final Conflict". With 5 episodes to go in the 5-year arc, the final battle with the aliens does not seem especially imminent. The final episode of the series is called "Final Conflict", suggesting that this is where the fight will occur. I had kind of hoped that the fight would happen a bit earlier so that we could see the effect of all of this on the people of earth (assuming earth wins the battle, of course -- this is Roddenberry, so I bet they do). I think we're going to end with a firefight and no afterward. That's disappointing.
This morning we had another air-conditioner contractor in. Based on a tip we got from my brother-in-law ("Mitsubishi ductless"), we found this particular contractor (who actually wants to sell us "Fujitsu ductless" for about a third less). The way it works is they put a unit on an outside wall (up by the ceiling, where it's out of the way), run a small duct through that wall to the outside of your house, and run that down to a compressor. It's not a central-air solution, but this contractor thought that two of these (in specific locations) augmented by a ceiling fan in the hall would cool the second floor. I have no idea what this costs, but he'll send us a bid. Meanwhile, one of Dani's coworkers told him that window air conditioners have gotten much quieter recently, so we may try to go browsing. I don't know how Dani will evaluate noise, though, and he's the one with the noise complaint. I can sleep through a running window AC with no problem. Snoring bothers me; white noise doesn't.
We also had a plumber in this morning to look at a drainage problem we're having. He's convinced that we need to dig up our yard (and tear up our patio, and tear down our fence so they can get the equipment in) and replace the main sewer line. We declined. They want to charge us $10k (excuse me, $9995 -- sound suspicious?) to do this work; that's an awful lot of semi-annual $100 visits from people with snakes. I am curious whether there is a solution that involves blasting high-pressure water through the line periodically to clear out gunk, but I didn't think of that until this evening.
I came home tonight to find the bulb in the light socket under the basement steps "broken". It was off, so I thought it was burned out. I grabbed the bulb to start twisting, and a hunk of glass came off in my hands. (The plumber was working there, so I'm betting he bumped it with his snake or something.) This left me with the question of how to remove the remnants of the bulb from a socket that might or might not be live right now. (Hmm, which way is it toggled?) I couldn't trace the line to the breaker box, so we ended up having to power-cycle the house. Whee. But it's fixed now. Needle-nose pliers are your friend.
I think I will be disappointed by the end of the TV show "Earth: Final Conflict". With 5 episodes to go in the 5-year arc, the final battle with the aliens does not seem especially imminent. The final episode of the series is called "Final Conflict", suggesting that this is where the fight will occur. I had kind of hoped that the fight would happen a bit earlier so that we could see the effect of all of this on the people of earth (assuming earth wins the battle, of course -- this is Roddenberry, so I bet they do). I think we're going to end with a firefight and no afterward. That's disappointing.
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1. Our bedroom air conditioner is pretty quiet, though a little white noise actually helps me to sleep. If y'all want to visit our messy bedroom, we can turn it on for you.
2. La Charcuterie in Shadyside is a possible cheese source -- we've gotten some wonderful cheeses there.
And, again, happy anniversary!
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Broken light fixtures
Re: Broken light fixtures
Hey, you got a userpic! Which cat is that?
Cat Picture
By the way, Eub is sorta right. When I do home repairs, I'm usually wearing sneakers so I don't think about it because I'm already insulated. Additionally, if you only use one hand, you can't complete a circuit so you won't get shocked
Re: Cat Picture
Johan's standard advice on working with anything that might be live is to put the hand that's not holding the tool (pliers or whatnot) in your pocket. This reduces the chance that you'll do something stupid with that hand. :-) (And, of course, the tool should have rubber on the handle, not just be straight metal.)
Re: Broken light fixtures
Re: Broken light fixtures