Ze latest on the Richmond House
Posted on September 12, 2008
Filed Under life sucks, plumbing, remodeling, richmond house | Leave a Comment
Inspection day!
Could not seal the plumbing outside the house last night so the plumbing inspection saw the Fail Whale.
But I did get sign off of a sorts on the insulation for the rooms. So I can start drywalling and mudding those rooms.
But a stupid little piece of Big Daddy’s stapler is missing. So I can’t use it to tack on the plastic over the insulation. I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out the stupid thing, plus calling tech support before I discovered that it did not work cause I was missing a little piece of the stapler.
I’ve searched for the little piece all over, and can’t find it, hopefully I can buy just the replacement piece locally. I do not want to buy a new stapler.
Last night super sucked. I drove up from Palo Alto with my Dad in the hopes he would be able to help me watch the filling of the drain, waste, and vent plumbing with water. HIs vision is way too poor so that did not work.
The traffic was totally screwed and it took 2 hours to drive up (normally a 45 minute deal) , and we were not able to pick up the insulation from Truitt-White in Berkeley. They close at 4:30 pm, we drove past that exit at 4:40 pm.
So could not finish the insulation in time for the inspection on Friday afternoon.
As it was the ceiling insulation is suppose to be R-30. The bundle I picked up is R-13. Less then half the value it is suppose to be. So I have to double up the stuff that I do have.I may have to buy yet more insulation.
So the big challenge of this project. The plumbing.
I got everything set, which took 45 minutes. This involved putting on the rubber caps, double checking all the straps for the pipping, putting on the thread tape for the clean outs, and so on.
The garden hose had a sprayer on the end. I planned on filling the piping with the hose just hanging in one of the vent pipes. Holding on to a sprayer wide open for 2 hours as the syetm filled would not do. But the frackin sprayer would not loosen from the hose. So that had to be cut off. At the time the hose was on a nice rolling cart, all wound up on a spool. Naturally the short hose that ran from the cart to the source was crimped and was not pushing water to the hose around the cart. So I had to unwind the entire length of hose, unscrew it from the cart tap, then unscrew the shorties from the tap, and replace it with the full length hose. Another little irritation.
Finally I start filling the system. I had forgoten to keep a close eye on the front of the house. Big frackin ooopsie.
In front of the house are two pipes that connect down to the sewer line that goes to the street. The 1st one has a pop cap. Which is a plastic cap that is suppose to pop off in case the water gets backed up from the sewer line. Something that is very very unlikely since my house is on a hill. After the pop cap pipe is the clean out and reverse flow preventitive valve. This acts as the primary safety for water and nasty sewage backing from the street line. It think, think it may also stop rats or mice entering from the sewer line as well, but not certain.
So the plan was put a big rubber cap on top of the 1st pipe ( on top of the plastic pop cap) , and put a inflatable plumber’s ballon on the 2nd to stop the water flow. Getting the rubber cap on really tight and secure on the 1st pipe was a challenge, since the concrete above it was in the way of tightening down worm screw on the rubber cap. The rubber cap has a metal band tightened by a worm screw. Beyond that I really was pushing it cause the plastic pop cap was in place via a big rubber fitting. I was under the impression the plastic pop cap was on correctly and tight.
It wasn’t.
So the entire plastic pop cap unit when pushed by the backed up water and my rubber cap came off. That water then drained into the subarea under the kitchen where I had dug out a trench for the new sewer pipe line fitting conecting to the kitchen sewer line . Filling it with water.
I was soo pissed and frustrated.
I called up Joe Farrrel to bitch and ask for help. Joe had installed the sewer line and I had told him I would be testing it. On the phone he had forgotten that fact. Even though both I and his foreman had told him. He has offered to help, we will see.
I ended up draining the water under the house by loosing all the rubber fittings under the kitchen. Which was a very muddy job, and at the point in the semi-dark. Scooping out 2 gallons of loose mud from the pit, and hand scooping the water into the sewer line = no fun. I pray that the rubber fittings will tighten back up now that they are covered in mud from the backed up water.
Notes from Michigan
Posted on September 6, 2008
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Well the flight was so so at best. Seats are too small. Paying $2 for water or a Coke seems kinda screwed up.
My sucky (but free) phone, the Treo 650 taught me a new lesson. I pulled the battery preflight since I was not sure how to turn it off / turn off the signal while flying. But somehow the battery ended up becoming totally drained and I could not use it when I got in to Phoenix. Tried charging it for 15 minutes in the PHX airport as well as Detroit, but it kept reporting “battery is extremely low - phone will shut off in 30 seconds” Even when plugged in.
The Tom Tom unit of my Mom’s is toast, so after a fruitless 30 minutes of tech support and resetting and software updates looks like we have to send the sucker in. The firm does not do hot swapaping via mail so my Mom will not have it for this roadtrip.
So could not call out, check in with my Mom for the airport pick up. Then once at the Detroit airport tried calling her via payphone, but she didn’t pick up. Next checked my messages and discovered she was in the cell phone waiting area. I asked a skycap where it was. He claimed it was on the same level Well without a way to reach her I started to see if I could walk to the Cell phone lot. The cop told me, nope, not possible. Another airport worker told me, “well you can catch a shuttle”.
I can’t wait to replace the phone.
But ze Apple 3g still seems to have some issues. So I’m kinda waiting for an hardware update before I do pick one up.
Anywhoo
I’m at the edge of Detroit and its nice to see my Uncle Bob, Aunt Eileen, Great Aunt Beth ( who I shared a great road trip from FL to MI a few years ago), Uncle Pat, and of course my cousin Devlin, whose wedding I am attending. There will be plenty other relatives showing up soon,
Word Press Camp San Francisco schedule
Posted on August 16, 2008
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Here is the Saturday schedule (sans speakers)
So I don’t have an official badge ( even though I did get a pdf of the badge from the site on Fri night) but I’m in good company since neither does Scott Beale. 10 % or so of us are all in the hand made badge class. Course I could have printed out the the badge if I knew I was suppose to.
http://2008.sf.wordcamp.org/
-kevin
User Track: Developer track
10 am Open Source biz models Even faster web sites
10 50 music performance ( don’t miss)
11 am LOL cats abd the secrets of virality secure coding with word press
1130 wordpress and microformats past present future
noon lunch
1 pm switching to wordpress painlessly
120 450 wordpress power user power tips
140 hassle free upgrades wordcpress api’s iphone and beyond
***2 pm matt muttering ( state of the word ( founder of wordpress)
3 pm get friendly with buddy press intro to jquery
320 democratizing the web through global voices Consulting and getting paid for your wordpress skills
340 an interview with Om Malik Color theory and the making of monotone
4 pm Liz Danxico and Jane Wells Riding the crazyhorse
5 pm music performance
510 pm kathy sierra kicking ass and creating passionate users
The cool badge I was looking forward to having
Posted on August 16, 2008
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But no such luck for the badge to be at the check in desk.
This event needs more power plugs. Next time I’ll bring an extension cord.
-kevin
Thar ‘ she glow’s
Posted on August 16, 2008
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Fun with the FLG. My pal Kezia called me on Tues at 830 am for some last minute help on the latest Flaming Lotus Girl project “Mutopia”. So I popped over the BoxShop in SF for a few hours on Tues eve. Everyone was working really frantically and they still had a ton to do before going to the playa.
just can’t put the Photoshop down
Posted on April 10, 2008
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The 1st rev of the dump show poster / gif.
kevin
Solo posters
Posted on April 10, 2008
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Something is tweaky with a3.
My works all went poof. Can’t seem to see the cranks folder at this moment.
New Banner for upcoming crank shows
Posted on April 10, 2008
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I was just trying to make a little graphic for upcoming shows for myspace announcement.
Really probly works with lots of white space around it.
2 hours later.
This was painful with photoshop. Kinda. New challenges. Kinda interesting.
I really should have used Adobe Ill. And its way over due for me to buy Indesign
Look its content on amazon from the Crank Ensemble!
Posted on April 10, 2008
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Very cool!
A small sound sample from Chapel of the Chimes: chapelofthechimes_cranking.aif
And a image from another show that I uploaded direct via the firefox plugin to S3
This image is proof that reaching for Larnie’s beer by “accident” is not to be done lightly.
The direct upload from wordpress gave me problems. But I was able to select the files from inside wordpress after I uploaded them via firefox. I also had to create a public folde r called cranks on Amazon.
kevin