BerthaBlog

My computer is in a room in the basement. The basement is mostly unfinished, except for this one room, and as a result it also isn’t heated or cooled. It’s quite comfy in the summer, but in the winter it gets a little… chilly.

Today I went to look for a space heater, because I’m tired of my fingers going numb when I’m in a long raid.

I didn’t realize—space heaters are seasonal, like swimming suits. Nobody sells space heaters during the winter. Everyone is selling fans and air conditioners.

What was I thinking?

Not much is going on, hence the dearth of posting. I’ve applied for a few jobs, gotten no reply. An agency contacted me once to ask if they could send my resume to a potential employer, but they e-mailed me a few days later to let me know the employer had “decided to go in another direction.” Translation: either the job went away, or they hired someone internally.

Actually managed to land another interview tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Sunday night, when I went to the bathroom, I heard water running in the toilet.

I took the lid off the tank to investigate. The float valve mechanism was leaking from the top. Water wasn’t just dripping out—it was cascading.

It’s not the first leak we’ve had lately. A couple of months ago the city utility department came out and did something with the water mains in the street. They turned our water off for about an hour. When they turned the water on again, half the fixtures in the house started dripping. The hose sprayer in the sink started spitting water from the connector hose, and I called my dad to help me replace it immediately.

The faucet on the side of the house, which had already been dripping, began running. I went to Lowe’s and got a shut-off fixture I could mount on the faucet to stop the constant drip.

Most of the other drips were minor, so I planned to deal with them over time.

Seems the one in the toilet wanted to move up on the list of priorities. So I went back up to Lowe’s and got a new float valve mechanism.

I had planned to manage the installation on my own, without bothering the Alpha Geek—he’d been out all day doing consulting jobs. But it was not to be. The lock nut on the old valve was stuck tight, and one person couldn’t get the angle to turn the lock nut and also hold the valve still. So instead of relaxing on the couch after a hard day of work, the poor guy was on the floor of the master bathroom, wedged between the toilet and the shower, unscrewing the lock nut while I held the valve assembly steady.

Fortunately that was the only difficult part of the replacement. Once we got the old valve loose I was able to install the new one easily.

One more drip down.