electric shock therapy

Today, after delaying for 4 weeks, I replaced all the outdoor lights on my building. Yeah, there are 3 other people who live here, but they don't do anything.

It's the first electrical project I've done by myself. I was a little nervous, more so when I accidentally touched a live wire and got a huge fucking shock (blister on my finger where it touched the wire).

But...the lights work!!!!! I did it!!!!!!

And the calculations I did to place the address plaque so it's directly under the light at night were perfect.

Oh, and my swamp cooler fix worked. I put water in it today and it's sound as a boat. But I get my RubberizeIt on Wednesday and that's when the real fun of that project starts.

To celebrate my day of successful projects my friend Cam came over and we ate way too much indian food. Will have to spend the rest of the evening watching movies to recover.

spots

I was just talking to my dad on the phone about my swamp cooler fix. I had to laugh as I hung up because my dad would do stuff like duct tape the bumper back on our car (and leave the tape on until the bumper fell off again) or unbend a hangar to make it into an antenna for the car. It didn't help that we always had ghetto cars like a huge van or a lincoln town car (bought, appropriately, in Vegas at 4 am, which is another story entirely). At the end of our conversation my dad was like "I definitely need to come out to Colorado this fall". I think he feels left out that I'm fixing stuff without him.

As I was writing my other blog post I remembered a time that my dad had come out to Colorado and rented a white car (think it was a Ford). We were going to the mountains but my dad wanted to stop at some refinery. He has a thing about taking tours in places normal people don't go.

side note: When my youngest brother Steve was being interviewed for a gifted school, at the age of 4, a teacher showed him a charcoal briquette and said "do you know what this is?" My brother rattled off an explanation of how coal is used for power. The week before my dad had taken us to tour a coal plant because it was on the way to my grandparents' house. The interviewer told my parents that he had to write down what my brother said and then fact check it because he didn't know how coal was converted into energy. Needless to say, my brother got into the school and weirdly, studied mining engineering in college and now works in part with the coal industry.

We pulled into the parking lot of the refinery and the air was heavily ladened with the stench of tar. No other cars were parked in the parking lot. The tour took an hour. As we headed back to the car we were shocked to discover it covered in black dots. It turned out the refinery was having its roof re-tarred (hee) and the wind had blown tar onto our car.

My dad was pissed so the guy who did the tour for us said we could drive the car through a car wash down the street and the refinery would pay for it. All the car wash did was spread the tar around. We drove the car for another week and when my dad returned it the rental company didn't say anything.

Which reminds me of another time, before I was living in Colorado, when my dad rented a Ford Taurus that we intended to drive around Colorado picking off 11 fourteeners in 9 days. We were on the approach to Torrey's and Gray's peak, which is notorious for being a rutted mess (even more so back in 1995). For what ever reason my dad was speeding. We rounded a curve, hit a rut, and I saw something fly off the car. My dad stopped and I got out of the passenger side. The trim under the door had been ripped off, all the way across the side of the car.

I picked it up and was like "what the fuck do I do with this?" My dad was like "just throw it in the back seat". Nine days later, when we returned the car, my dad was like "Just walk casually towards the airport bus." As we were walking a guy from the rental company called after us.

"Sir, I think you left something in the back seat!"

My dad said "Uh, no, that belongs to you!" Then he looked at me and said "RUN!"

We ran to the bus and watched through the back window as the confused rental car check in guy pulled the trim out of the back seat of the car from the driver's side. We had a great laugh. My dad was never charged for damaging the car.

Looking forward to my dad coming out here, hopefully in the fall...

RubberizeIt

Today I bought a quart of liquid rubber. Seriously. It's made by a company called RubberizeIt.

While I was in California this week the pan of my swamp cooler sprung a leak. It was a ring sized hole (the white spot in the middle of all the rust):

That sucked because it means I have no way to cool my house except for a fan. So, after doing some online research, I found RubberizeIt, watched the YouTube vid on how to fix a swamp cooler, was like "fuck yeah I can do that", and ordered everything I need to bomb proof my swamp cooler pan.

But, the liquid rubber doesn't get here until next Friday.

So I looked through my tools and stuff and found a suction cup I had saved (it's supposed to be used to hang a razor in the bathroom). I trimmed it up and then filled the cup part with latex sealant. Then I scraped and sanded the metal around the hole, and stuck the cup over the hole and covered the suction cup with more latex sealant:

It kind of looks like a latex nipple.

Finally, I covered the underside of the hole with more latex sealant:

I'm going to let the latex cure for at least 12 hours, then I'm going to fill the pan with water and see what happens. Even though the latex is technically not rated for underwater I figure it will last until the RubberizeIt gets here. And I use that sealant on the plug for the swamp cooler and it lasts for the whole summer. My dad thinks it will work.

I'm hoping with the liquid rubber I can keep my swamp cooler for another few years. It's going to cost about $2000 to replace it since I have to hire a crane to hoist it up on the roof.

Go me with my redneck engineering!

back splash

I was complaining to a friend about my kitchen remodel hoping he would have some tips for me:

Me:

Busy weekend trying to finish up loose ends for my kitchen remodel. I really hate shopping and walking around looking at things. Like, I don't fucking know if some tile will make a good back splash or not.

Pascal:

Ooh yeah the perils of choosing a splash back. Now this is also a bit of a mystery to me. You have fashion, taste and practicality to balance. I favour stainless steel as it's really hygienic, easy to clean and fairly cheap. However it shows up the muck. Glass is super fashionable in the Uk at the moment. Tiles can be cheap or stupid expensive with ones that are crafted on the thigh of an Italian maiden using only her feet, "look you can see the imprint of her toenail", "but they aren't square and look shit", "but they cost me $1000 per square foot", "hmm", "want some coffee, it comes from beans that have passed through the digestive tract of a patagonian trouser hamster","fuck off, I hate you". Don't ask me for advice on splash backs babe. I will get it wrong and you'll hate me for ever. I'll happily tell you whether I like your choice though.

I found it interesting that he mentioned "hygienic" when referring to his kitchen. He cooks a lot so maybe he meant it from a food perspective. Though, he's also the type of person that would have sex on the butcher's block.

Too bad the backsplash I want, which is made out of recycled wine bottles, costs a billion dollars.
 

elements of fucking style

I went to Tattered Cover today to pick up a copy of the elements of style since I've been unsuccessful in procuring a used copy.

They didn't have it, but they did have the elements of fucking style. It's actually really good. And next time I'm at a writer's meeting and someone makes a nonsensical comment (someone told me I use too many adverbs and I was like "do you know what an adverb is?" - dead silence) I can whip it out and give a quick lesson in, for example, dangling modifiers:

wrong:

Having trouble getting aroused, Viagra helps me maintain an erection.

right:

As I have trouble getting aroused, Viagra helps me maintain an erection.

For real, that's in the book. And more. Buy it. Everyone writes, everyone can use it.