The Grass Is Always Greener

Especially after 4-5 inches of rain ... in just a few hours. On top of a few inches 48 hours before that.

The good news: my yard is SO lush and green! The mother can't stop saying how nice it looks. I'm very glad I got it mowed Saturday, otherwise we may be talking jungle out there. The bad news: Step on it and you'll sink faster than in quicksand. I made the mistake of stepping on the edge as I deposited the last of the trash at the alley this morning. ACK! A mere step and my whole foot was nearly gone. Mud city, man. Think I should open a spa? People pay good money to have that crap slapped all over 'em.

Things are slowly drying out though the Mississippi is on the rise again. So much so, that the commemorative statue of explorers Lewis and Clark along the banks of the St. Louis landing that normally looks like this





instead looks like this today -- and the river won't crest until Thursday! While we aren't set for rain this week, if it rains upstream, it will surely go well above the 11 feet over flood stage. I'm thinking that hat will disappear soon and the banks will soon reclaim the adjacent Leonor K. Sullivan Blvd. as it did earlier this summer.

The weatherman said today that as of right now, this is the seventh wettest year on record with more than 50 inches of precipitation to date. We're on track though to have the wettest year ever. We only need four more inches. I'm OK with that.

Just as long as it doesn't all come at once again ...

Spared the Worst

We were lucky. The heavy rain dissipated before any got in the house. Our neighbors had some water, though nothing serious.

Lots of people here -- and on the other side of the river -- were flooded out. Some had to be rescued from their homes by boat! I was flabbergasted watching some of the news coverage.

The local hospital had a flooded basement and a telephone pole on the corner either got knocked down by the wind or else fell due to eroded ground from the rising water. (second photo) Stalled cars happened all over the place.(top photo) The worst was past by noon. Just some really gusty winds remained.

It was a rough morning so I took a nap. Didn't get to sleep much as my neighbor, who is siding his shed, came out and got working after the rain stopped. But I did get an hour or so in and that helped some.

Flooded Friday

It doesn't look quite this bad today, but it's not far off -- at least bad enough to keep me sitting still for a little while. And I guess I'd better get used to it. Seems like we're in for rain ALL weekend. Lovely.

I guess I shouldn't complain too much. I could always be in Galveston.

The thunder that awakened me about 4:45 brought heavy rain with it shortly thereafter. It POURED for about an hour, flooding my roadway and from what the news is showing, several streets between here and work. So I'm in no particular hurry to head out even though it's stopped now.

Between the thunder, Ozzie demanding to be let up because of it, Toby being woke up by it, and then the mother, I never went back to sleep. So I'm going on less than five hours. Not a pretty scene. Five is about my limit to function coherently. And joy of joys, I've got a really full plate today.

It should be a fun day. Happy Friday!

P-A-I-N-T

The mother is a painting fool! Since yesterday, she has painted:

• Four 4x4 posts
• Finials for each of the 4x4 posts
• Roughly 34 linear feet of handrailing
• 24 spindles

This was all virgin wood, so she’s done each piece twice. She even painted into the night after we carried all of this in to the family room. (Just in case it rained.) Now the family room, in addition to already looking like a warehouse, now smells like a paint factory. All this stuff needs to be ready to go for Saturday when Lawrence will come to assemble and install it.

This tally doesn’t include the old posts (that she made me salvage from the old rail) a bunch of decorative pieces , and a 24-inch round wood piece that sits atop the air conditioner each winter.

I’m afraid to stand still in front of her – she might slap a coat on me!

Luckily, Mother Nature held out for a fifth consecutive day – FIVE WHOLE DAYS – with no rain except for a spritz on Sunday. (It wasn’t even enough to consider it a shower.) They’re saying there’s only a slight chance for rain today which would make it SIX days.

Soon, the mother will be ready to start painting around the foundation of the house. That means I have bricks to move. UGH. I had planned to have them out of the way and actually in the walkway by now, but as you know, that just hasn't happened --yet.

I guess we’ll just have to see how far I get this weekend, when they are predicting rain again.

The Return of the "R" Word

I kept my promise to myself and awoke early today. (It was 7:43 a.m. On a Sunday, that qualifies.) My room didn’t seem bright at all so I forced myself out of bed and padded to the door.

Cloudy. I switched on The Weather Channel just as the Local 8s came on. I grimaced when I saw the radar: a HUGE red and yellow cloud just above us. Some serious rain was on the way. I shed my jammies as I ran through the house, threw on the first shorts and shirt I could grab (which oddly enough, matched) rolled my hair into a ball and clipped it on my head, and ran at breakneck speed for the door.

You see, no one said anything about rain last night. I had left the area where I’d been working on the porch exposed. Luckily, that was the only area I had uncovered so it was a matter of flipping the plastic back and throwing bricks down to hold it in place. That was done in about five minutes. As I walked under the carport, I noticed that I had an open bag of mortar sitting on the cart. I quickly shuttled that out to the shed.

I literally got to watch the storm roll in. So I had to take some photos because the sky was simultaneously ominous and beautiful. I’ve shared some of those here. You can see the black streak (which was freaky) and the clouds swallow up what little blue sky there was.

As I stopped shooting, I noticed that the mother had laid my landscape forms for thewalkway atop the remaining fence panels. They’re metal. If they get wet, they’ll rust. Rust on my new white vinyl fence? I don’t think so.

I ran back to the shed, grabbed some plastic, spread it out in the carport and started carrying in the forms. As I ran back to get the last two, the rain started. It was 8:05. If I’d awakened five minutes later, it would have been too late to have gotten everything back under wraps.

When I got back inside, the Weather Channel was again broadcasting Local on the 8s. Cloudy with a chance of thunderstorms came the voice over as lightning lit up the livingroom.

Yeah, thanks for telling me that before they arrived …

The "Evening" Post

The evening post got a little delayed due to last night's extended light show. So much for my bright, sunny day. The latter half of the evening became the classic novel line, “It was a dark and stormy night.” I was violently awakened at about 2 by thunder that rolled on and on for at least a minute, rattling things all over my room.

But hey, I got two consecutive dry days in, so ask me if I cared!

I did not finish the porch. Yeah, I know. This is becoming a running theme with me, isn’t it? But I worked on it a very long time today. Yesterday’s snags had really slowed me down. So this is as much as I was able to get done. I only pray that everything was sufficiently dry and that my plastic will be enough to protect it from the downpour. You can see my "mudpit" in the pictures. (And, if you look carefully, you’ll see Toby in one picture and Ozzie in the other. They were both in the door at one point, but Toby disappeared before I could snap the two of them.)

I can tell you this: Laying bricks upright takes infinitely longer and is unbelievably more complex than just laying them flat. It also requires a great deal of patience, so you can imagine how frazzled I am, me, the queen of Impatience. I am doing three rows on the face of the porch. The first row is structural. It will be masked by the layers of gravel and sand that will precede the actual bricks of the walkway. Not all of the bricks are the same distance from the base, thanks to the jagged foundation, but they’re all level. I have nearly finished the second row. It will intersect at some point with the walkway bricks. The third row will connect the face of the porch with its floor.

I decided to do a running bond pattern on the face. It will be stronger structurally and it will be a good transition to the walkway which will have the same pattern. The mother came out to inspect my progress as I was wrapping up. Except for me, she’s my harshest critic and she said it looks great, so I guess it does.

I’m just hoping that when I am able to go back to it again and I pull away the plastic I don’t find a heap of bricks that used to be the porch face!

Rakin' It In

It isn't even my birthday yet and somehow I've managed to rake in the goods already. The mother shocked me with the best of both worlds: More cute shoes, a new belt, and a cordless drill! (I got it early thanks to my continued discussion about buying a new drill.) The drill came with all kinds of stuff including a new hammer, a few sets of pliers and a stud sensor in addition to about two dozen different drill and driver bits.

Then, my former client turned friend sent me a darling necklace that arrived on Saturday. And, of course, there's still the unused Lowe's gift card that arrived last month because of a calendar error. It doesn't get much better than that.

I have to call the JULIE people to get the utilities marked for our fence project and make sure Lawrence is still on for Wednesday. While rain is in the forecast today and tomorrow, it's supposed to (noddin' at KayO)be dry on Wednesday. I'll take the rain tomorrow -- as long as it doesn't rain on my cake -- if it will be dry to get the fence up Wednesday.

I didn't get the porch done yesterday as I'd liked, so I guess I won't be entering the Houseblogs contest with TrueValue. (They're giving away three $300 cards for entering your favorite project.)Oh well.

Some Quick Stats

The Fence
Number of Days 'Til the New Fence Goes Up: 7 (including today)
Percent of Rain Chance Forecast for July 23: 10
Number of Panels Going Up: 8
Number of Poles Going Up: 10
Percent Chance That Lawrence Will Be Well Enough to Proceed: 95

The Walkway
Percent of Rain Chance Forecast for This Weekend: 20 on Saturday, 10 on Sunday
Chance That It Will Rain Both Days Anyway: 70 percent
Number of Concrete Slabs Left to Remove: 5
Chance That I'll Pay Someone $600 to Do It: 0 percent
Chance That I'll Finish the Porch This Weekend: 95 percent
Chance That I'll Ever Finish the Walkway: 50 percent
Chance That I'll Ride the New Cart Before Putting Supplies on It: 100 percent

Arrivals & Departures

Home Depot delivered the posts and fence shortly after 9 a.m. They did call first, but they told me at the store it would probably be closer to mid-day. Uh-huh.

I wasn't sure how they'd deliver it. The driver had a forklift on the back of the truck and brought it off the back and drove it through my driveway. So, I now have a pallet of vinyl fencing and post laying in the driveway. Until July 23. Ideally.

Rain came and left this morning. A few schizophrenic showers and then a brief downpour and then that's it until tonight and tomorrow. But hey, that's OK because I go back to work tomorrow.

My cousin didn't make it today to tear out the old fence, so I'm bettin' that it will be gone when I get home tomorrow. You're outta here!!! It's so wild to have this much stuff goin' on and actually getting done.

The crazy man made another appearance today, this time approaching the mother. He told her he would "be back to put up that fence" but "he had to go to court right now." She didn't know initially that it was him or God only knows. He gets a single warning if and when he returns. After that, he can tell it to the police.

I wonder if there's a surgery to have a maniac magnet removed because, clearly, I have one. And, at the rate that scrap metal is going for ...

Welcome Back, Netvibes!

No idea what was up with Netvibes yesterday, but it's back this morning, thank God. I didn't realize how dependent I'd become upon it for my initial news, blog reading, and of course, Twitter.

I know I promised pictures and I would have delivered because I actually did make progress last night. Mother Nature, however, was a rude cow and literally rained on my parade as I was wrapping up. I managed to safely shuttle all of my working gear into the shed before anything could get too wet, but I forgot to put bucket o'dirt under the carport. (It's now bucket o'mud.)

I gave my neighbors the night off from the NEEEEENUHHH whine of the RotoZip, opting instead to do one of the parts of the job I've been dreading: digging out the front edge. (My knees and back are feelin' it today as a result. BIG TIME!) I've dreaded it because the front is bounded by Hell's Shrubbery. For some reason, Carole has a thing for vicious vegetation. The more brambles and barbs it has, the more determined she seems to be to plant it in our yard. Love it! (Read: sarcasm x10). One of my fantasies is having a truck come and yank those suckers right out of the ground. (Yes, I lead a very exciting life. My fantasies even involve house projects.)

I'm almost to the edge that meets up with the nearly complete side edge. Both bricks will have to be cut to fit and it shouldn't take long to get all that in place. Then, I can actually put down the half-bricks that will complete the LAST ROW of the first half of the porch. I guess I shouldn't get too excited at that prospect. There's still a whole lot left to do.

Workin' on a Moonburn

My iPod is a better predictor of rain than any forecaster ever dare be. I should have known on Saturday when during my many errands, back to back, it played: BB King's "Stormy Monday," "Rain King" by Counting Crows, "Red Rain" by Peter Gabriel, the Doors' "Riders on the Storm"as interpreted by Creed, and "When I Look to the Sky," by Train of which the entire opening is about rain.

This is the second time in recent weeks that it has done that and it has rained like hell within the next 24 hours. (Deluge out of nowhere late Saturday night and on and off rain all day on Sunday.)

And, of course, since I have to work, it's going to be dry Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And, since I get off early on Thursday and am off on Friday, it's supposed to pour. Also storm chances on Saturday and Sunday. Not sure what the first part of the week looks like but it will probably rain then, too, as I am taking vacation Monday and Tuesday.

So, it appears I'll be workin' on a moonburn through midweek, going straight from the job where I make the money to the other job where I spend it. It's particularly aggravating because, except for digging out the front section and putting in bricks, I'm very, very close to having the larger portion of the porch DONE. So close, but not done.

We'll see what the iPod says tonight …

Schizophrenic Weather

Some days it just isn't worth the fight. Today was one of those days.

It was clouded up already when I got up. The forecast didn't give me any better news. The Doppler showed cluster after cluster of showers headed our way. The good news: the plastic-covered mortar was safe.

While I made no progress on the porch yesterday, I did get lots of things done. I got the yard mowed -- front and back, thank you very much -- and was really impressed at its performance without a bagger. (I purposely left it off when I did the back, planning to go back over and bag since I hadn't cut back there in two weeks!)

But once I'd cut, the mower had pretty well mulched it! Just a few little spots where the cut grass was strewn about. Impressive.

I went to two hardware stores (one where I purchased the mortar) bought 100 more bricks, hit Wal-Mart, grocery stores ... lots of running around. After coming home, unloading, putting everything away, and then mowing, I was beat. But I did laundry.

So, I'd hoped that today could be devoted to the porch. I really wanted the larger portion done, except for digging around the outside edge. But Mother Nature was not in a cooperative mood. The house was dead center of black clouds and blue sky. Dead center. Weather could go either way. Guess which way it went?

I decided I'd start out by cutting some bricks for the outer edge. I didn't get the first brick cut when Rain Round 1 began. I unplugged the RotoZip and put the cord under the carport. Twenty minutes later, the sun was out.

This set the stage for the afternoon. Schizophrenic weather: It's raining. Now it's not. Yes it is. Now the sun's out. Now it's pouring. Wait, here comes the sun.

After hours of this, I really thought it was done. I spent the next hour setting down a row and a half of bricks and loading up a new supply to within reach. Suddenly, the wind gusted, the sky darkened, and it poured. POURED.

Screw it. I quit. I put things away or under the carport and went in, completely and totally disgusted. I decided to hit the showers. It was great to get all the dust off of me. The sun was blazing through the windows as I got dressed. The sun has been back out for the last two and a half hours now.

Mother Nature, you're a real beeotch.

Calling It A Day

I started my day later than I intended. I was going to go out and work on the porch but the Doppler kept showing rain on or in my neighborhood. But it didn't rain all day... until about 40 minutes ago. And it POURED. In fact, it still is.

This wouldn't be a problem except IT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO RAIN. And since it WASN'T SUPPOSED TO RAIN, I cut a corner. I didn't haul 180 pounds of mortar out to the shed. Oh no. Not me. I backed the car in at the front of the driveway and unloaded the mortar in the carport. I DID take the precaution of putting it on some plastic and wrapping some around it. I only hope that it does some good.

I also unloaded 100 more bricks in the driveway. Where they can get wet.

So much for my early start plan for tomorrow. I may well go out to find three huge concrete slabs that used to be mortar and 100 bricks soaked through, clearly not a good thing to lay atop mortar mix.

Mother Nature is clearly PMSing.

Quick updates

Here's a few updates on some previously blogged items.

First, I got the bill for the "additional physician charges" related to the injured midigit. It was $407! (Further convinces me I'm in the wrong line of work. The doctor spent maybe a minute looking at the x-rays and about the same amount of time talking to me.) Network discounts reduced that to $80 which the insurance company paid. My original $50 payment still covers my share.

Second, the crazy man who kept approaching me in my yard … was arrested Friday night. I don't know what the charges were for and I don't care. (Apparently, he had some outstanding warrants in a neighboring county, so he should be locked up for a while. Suffice it to say I should be safe for the next weekend or two.) Always good to know that you're being stalked in your yard by a crazy man wanted by the law.

My poor neighbor. He was so upset about the whole incident. He kept apologizing while he was telling me about the arrest last night. 'He's really not my friend. Really."

And finally, rain later today but maybe not on Wednesday and Thursday. I may actually get something done this week after all! Cross your fingers.

Can't Escape the Rain

There are actually bricks on the porch. Not many, but I've hit more snags along the way.

First, there are a multitude of uneven ridges along the foundation of the house where someone attempted to seal it. I appreciate that they sealed it, but what a sloppy job! Now I have to do my best to clean up their mess so I can get my bricks down in something resembling a straight line.

Then, getting them to fit in the pattern I was going for ... well, it's close.

And then, I get a few rows down, start mortaring and before I can mix some more up, black clouds appear overhead. Instead of continuing, I get things picked up as quickly as I could. As I pulled the latch on the shed, it started to rain. Perfect timing.

But the rain quite literally put a damper on my brick work. It's almost as if the iPod's selections on my drive to Lowe's last night was an omen. It rained for all of 10 minutes. I decided not to drag everything out. I didn't even get my yard mowed. It looks awful. I'm so embarrassed.

At least I got something done on this project, so I guess I can't complain too much. I guess it will, like everything else, take a lot longer than I thought. But here's a few pics. The first one is yesterday, before I got started. The second is today, right before the rain. The second is also a much better representation of what the color is on the house.

Working on the Weekend

The weekend is here and except for today, the forecast is dry. Or so they say. I've learned not to trust the forecast. But, assuming there's no rain, where do I begin?

I'm thinking I start with the porch. There's one corner against the house where the concrete is collapsed. While caulk and paint were fine for the aesthetics, when it comes to laying brick over it, it needs to be level.

I think Lowe's has concrete on sale, too. If it's going to be dry, I can mix a small batch and get that corner filled and drying. I also need to buy four new posts for the front porch railing. I already have railing and spindles to replace what's out there now.

During our conversation last weekend, Lawrence and I talked about moving the railing off the porch and into the landscaping. (Currently, two posts are and two posts aren't on the porch. The move would put all four out there.)

Sadly, while we had made a decision on the fence, the sale was off by the time we'd discovered it. It was one of those holiday weekend deals instead of a sale from Saturday to Saturday. I know now that Lowe's puts their fliers online, so I'll never miss another one. (Eight panels at a $19 difference in price each comes to $152, or enough of a savings to make me wait it out.) There will always be another sale though. Summer hasn't even officially started yet, despite the soaring temperatures.

And there's always Bedroom 1 to get started on. I have the wallpaper, crown molding, bead board and chair rail just waiting downstairs. Of course, there's at least a day's worth of prep work to be done, too.

So rain or shine, it's going to be a busy weekend.

After the Storm (s)

Things began to die down last night as sunset approached. In fact, the sun started peeking through as one of the last heavy showers fell. Me being me, I began searching madly for the rainbow.

I found it.

And then I found the sun shining through my neighbor's rain gauge and thought that was an interesting shot. Looks like we got in excess of 2.5 inches of rain. And we're in for more. In fact, we've already had at least one round this morning, The doppler, though, doesn't show anything else immediate but says there's a 30 percent chance, and that we're possibly in for a thunderstorm.

I hope the chance stays low as I am going to meet Lawrence later to get that new water heater! After some comments on the blog, discussions with some folks at work, and wisdom from Lawrence, I've decided to go with the GE at Home Depot. Lawrence has something going on this morning so I'm going to meet him at the store later. Going a little earlier to get some things I need for other projects.

I spent about two hours last night moving all the gear that has currently taken up residence in the family room (all for future This D*mn House projects) so that we have a clear path in and out of the basement for the great water heater exchange. While that takes a lot off my mind, it puts it a lot on my plate. So, going to grab some breakfast and get the day under way. Yee-hah!

Did I Buy Lakefront Property?

No. I did not. But you'd think I did ...

Here's my lakefront roadway courtesy of the first of three storm fronts. Driving rain. High winds. Some hail, but not here. They said a tornado touched down about 10 miles away but now they're saying it was much farther. Hope all is well there.

Soon, the roadway will be littered with cars that, after making itthrough a series of flooded roads, couldn't make it through one more ...

And How Was Your Day?

I was rudely awakened shortly after 3 a.m. by thunder that shook the house, and subsequently, by a terrified Yorkie desperate for comforting. (Ozzie hates storms.) By the time the thunder, lightning, and pouring rain had died down and I was lulled back to sleep with a Yorkie in the crook of my arm, the alarm was going off … I made it through my morning routine, and a few other tasks since mom isn't feeling well, rather sluggishly.
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The bus was late and for a minute or two I thought perhaps with my sluggish pace I'd missed it. But there it came, finally. The Nano eased me into a catnap, and awoke just two stops ahead of mine. Once at the office, my friend KayO started me out with a laugh. Building on the six-word memoir from earlier this week, she shared this to summarize her morning: Barefoot, I stepped in cat puke. OK, my day didn't start that badly.
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We had a rare power outage at the office today. (In more than seven years, I can think of only 3-4 such events, and only one that lasted long enough to send people home.)

What was freaky was that I was in the restroom when the lights went out. I had just entered a stall and was about to "undress" when it went black. One of my young colleagues was a few stalls away. Since she was already engaged shall we say, I said I would venture out and see if I could flip the lights back on. I had assumed that the plunge into darkness was because of a faulty light switch that has been acting up in the ladies' room on our floor for a while now. I made it to the door only to find that it was NOT the switch at all. I remembered that in one of my desk drawers, I had tossed one of those tiny pressure lights that used to be on my keyring. I went and got it and returned to the restroom. Many folks were grateful for that tiny light. You really couldn't see anything otherwise!

As I a window, I can stay in my office with no problem. The phones worked, but the computers were dead. I undocked my laptop and tried to tap our wireless connection in the building and had it -- for about a second. Then it went down, too. Most people were congregating in the middle areas where some back-up lights had come on. Even so, it was still pretty dark. After about an hour, the lights came back. The computers did not. Made it very hard to get anything done. Also, made it plain just how super-dependent we are on technology. Within another hour, the computers were running once again.

The timing was good because I got a call from a colleague in New York within two minutes of the system's resurrection. I would not have been able to help her without my computer! The phone rang while I was on that call, flashing a number I didn't recognize, but an area code I did: mine.
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When I hung up with New York, I had a message. My mother called to tell me we have no phone at home. She was on the phone with our neighbor and it just went dead. (She used their phone to call me.) It does this from time to time. (The problem was supposedly resolved a year ago, after intermittent outages and in spite of the efforts of a parade of technicians in previous years.)

It may account for why she hadn't heard anything yet from either Lawrence the Handyman or Carl the HVAC guy about the running-on-borrowed-time water heater. (Someone suggested we ask our heating/cooling guy about water heaters, so that call was on mom's to-do list for today.)
I'm starting to hear the theme song from Gilligan's Island in my head about having no phones, no lights, etc. It will be interesting to see if anything else can befall us before I get home.

I'm not sure I want to find out.

Wallowing In Water Heater Woes

A little discolored water on the laundry room floor on Sunday didn't faze me. At first, I thought it was Tigger. He is 16. He is a cat. And cats leave you all kinds of niceties on the floor on occasion, especially older and sometimes incontinent cats.

A little more water made me think it was the air conditioner drain hose leaking. It wasn't. Was it leaking from inside? Maybe, but I didn't see it. It's done nothing but rain, rain, rain here for weeks so it was possible we'd sprung a leak. Checked everywhere. Nothing. Also checked all the pipes for a leak. Nothing.

I also checked the water heater. Couldn't find a spot, except around one of the feet, that was wet. That didn't count though. The floor around it was damp, so it would naturally be damp, too. But after more water last night I went over it VERY thoroughly and found a damp spot on the bottom. Prognosis: The water heater is dying.

To its credits, it's time. It's almost 20 years old. (I cringe to think that when that one went in, I was a college intern!) They sure don't make them like that anymore. In fact, today's models average 8-13 years -- if they even make it to 8! Pathetic.

Buck up li'l camper, the remedy seems pretty simple: Buy a new one. OK, but which one? There isn't a dealer for Richmond, the kind in place now, within 100 miles. So, top of the replacement list were GE (Home Depot), Whirlpool (Lowe's), and Kenmore (Sears). I did a lot of researching online. And with all the complaints and the bad news about the leading manufacturers that I uncovered, I can't help but be confused and concerned.

First, the Whirlpool "Flame Lock" water heaters were the subject of a huge class action suit that was only settled in the past several months. Second, Whirlpool water heaters are actually made by the American Water Heater Company (AWHC), one of four such manufacturers in the United States. AWHC also make products that GE and Kenmore slap their stickers on the side of the tank and distribute to stores such as Lowe's and Sears. So much for those brands!

Another issue, but with some levity, came through this YouTube submission. It's long, but pretty hilarious. (If you can't stick it out, fast-forward 'til he does the impression of the Sears' gal calling him at about the 4:50 point. Priceless.)

I guess I'll have to call Lawrence and see what he recommends. And see what his schedule is like and if I can get something done this week. If you've got suggestions, I'm open to them.

I know that I don't want to wait until the thing goes completely out and Tigger needs scuba gear.

And so another adventure begins ...