cellio | last few days

Last week Dani got email from someone he knew in Toronto lo these many years ago. She and her family were driving to DC; did he want to visit with them on their way down? We said sure, and invited them for dinner Sunday. She and her husband are friendly people; their teenage sons were shy but pleasant, and they appreciated access to graphic novels and an internet connection while the rest of us were talking. :-) (One of them was excited to find Diablo installed on one of Dani's computers...)

The adults had obviously done some research. During dinner they said "please tell us about the SCA" and "so what about the house on the flatbed?". I googled both of us later and the page for the little house on the flatbed does not come up in the first half-dozen pages of results, so I'm not sure how they got there. (Of course, my home page does, from there you can get to my page of SCA links, and from there...) I, lacking information beyond her first name, had done no such research; I hope I was not socially deficient in these modern times.

Both Dani's and my desktop computers have been gradually getting sluggish over time. Dani went shopping and found that we could each triple our memory for $50. Ah, much better! Dani was kind enough to install mine for me. (We have a clean division of labor when it comes to household IT: he does hardware and I do system administration. Things go more smoothly when we do not try to switch.)

Dani did another hardware installation this weekend: late last week the water flow to the shower head was, suddenly, extremely diminished. Advice found on the internet suggested banging on the head and/or pipes to shake loose any gunk that might be in there; we decided not to do that without replacement hardware on hand, 'cause some water is better than none at all. (I should mention, in passing, that it took me a couple tries to find any useful information here. Who knew that some people try to deliberately reduce flow to their shower heads? Err, isn't that what the tub knobs are for? But I digress.) In the end, Dani bought a $5 head and simply replaced it; the new one is actually better than the old one. (Another in the "who knew?" department: you can spend $100 on a showerhead. It had better be gold-plated, water-softening, temperature-regulating, and massaging, for that price!)

A week ago Monday I took all the cats in for checkups, and two got blood drawn for tests. Tuesday night I got a message: um, err, we lost some of it. I had the last appointments of the night, and apparently one vial got left in the centrefuge... so I had to take Erik (I'm glad it was Erik! He's easy!) back to be stuck again on Wednesday. They were apologetic, but sigh. (Everyone's basically normal, locally scoped.)

Shabbat morning was a little more rabbi-heavy than usual. Both of our rabbis were there (until it was time to leave for the later service, anyway). We also had our incipient third rabbi (yes, now it can be told... we were looking for an educator and got one who's also a rabbi; mabfan, you know him). And our associate rabbi's aunt, who is also a rabbi, was visiting. I'm glad that day's lay torah reader isn't one to get spooked easily. :-) (Though he might not have known about the last; I was introduced to her Friday night, but I don't think she mentioned her background Saturday morning.)

The third rabbi will be focusing mostly on education (including adults). He's an excellent teacher, and I'm looking forward to having more chances to learn with him. I presume that our adult-ed program is going to get a boost; yay!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Who knew that some people try to deliberately reduce flow to their shower heads? Err, isn't that what the tub knobs are for?

Yours might be; mine are not. They are for temperature regulation. If they're low enough that water flow is restricted, the water is cold. By restricting flow at the shower head, I get both the right temperature and adequate water pressure. (I do have woefully outdated plumbing in the bathroom, though.)

Ah, ok. I guess our plumbing is better than yours. (Mind, ours is on the old-and-creaky side, but one can always get lucky.) We have the two knobs, which regulate both temperature and pressure, and the "send it on up to the showerhead" control, and with that we can get the pressure and temperature we want. (Insert side rant about overloading those controls; temperature and pressure are different properties and it's bad UI to combine them like that. Tweaking the temperature shouldn't change my pressure, darnit.)

Now that you mention it, though, I'm reminded of the highly-annoying controls I've encountered in some hotels, where you get one knob and it regulates both temperature and pressure. I don't know why they do that.

Massachusetts' building code requires a single knob for pressure and temperature control, like those hotels. I'm given to understand it's to keep children from turning on only the hot and scalding themselves.

That's... somewhat silly. By improperly expanding my personal expeience out to a general statement, I will assert that childhood scaldings are mostly beneficial to the child.

Oh, yuck. So in order to get hot water I have to use more of it than I need. :-( I'm glad we have no such code in PA.

last few days

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